


what's the name of the game?

by sunflowerabbit



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (somewhat), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Found Family, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, no beta we die like Glenn, spoilers for Golden Deer route
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-24 22:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 34,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21506110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerabbit/pseuds/sunflowerabbit
Summary: Somehow, Sylvain slips through the cracks between Claude’s schemes and focus. Claude doesn’t know what to make of it.*on hiatus
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 74
Kudos: 273





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> im just trying to feed myself im sorry
> 
> dedicated to leann, cara, and dyspho—for enduring hours on end of my rambling. thank u
> 
> *warning for violence at the last section

_Following the invasions in 961, and the establishment of the Officers Academy of the Church of Seiros in 981, the Alliance, Kingdom, and Empire pooled their resources into constructing Fodlan’s Locket, an impenetrable fortress. . ._

Claude frowned as he read over the section again. The history book, from their classroom’s collection, painted a rather disheartening picture—it dedicated merely one paragraph to Almyra, and that one part not only ignored rather important pieces of information, but also generalized Almyran citizens as bloodthirsty savages.

Where were the accounts and documentation of the attempt at peace treaties 18 years ago? The unnecessary bloodshed when a group of Fodlan soldiers had mistakenly killed some of the incoming Almyran diplomats and restarted the conflicts between the two lands? The whole mess of betrayal and deception that was the peace treaty itself? 

Over and over, it was the same: blah blah attempted invasions over 200 years ago, blah blah _‘we built this whole school and fortress to protect ourselves from these savages’_ yada yada—Claude could recite all these little tidbits by heart because it _was all they ever talked about_. Were all of the books in the monastery just painfully outdated or did no one want to talk about how much culture and relations changed in the past. . .hundred years, at least? 

The entire Alliance was anything but what the name suggested. Sitting in the most recent roundtable conference had only proven so, with Claude feeling somewhat like a child watching their parents try to hide their animosity and hostility—but with the added layer of the parents hating the child themself, to round out that complicated metaphor.

Claude grumbled and made a note in his paper. If anything, he could at least derive some amusement at the fact that he was studying at a school originally made to fend off people specifically from his homeland.

“Claude, I implore you,” Lorenz hissed, from somewhere behind him. Claude wished he would sit somewhere else, for once. He knew Lorenz had good intentions, but it could be grating sometimes. “Please sit properly. It is unbefitting of a noble.”

Claude continued to write, hoping Lorenz would leave it alone if he pretended not to hear.

“ _Claude._ ”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” He feigned obliviousness, not looking up from his paper. “I’m afraid I’ll have to attend to your concerns later, I’m very busy right now. _Sooo_ busy.”

Nearby, he heard Leonie muffle a laugh. Lorenz coughed out an offended noise in his surprise.

“Busy with _what_? I doubt it would take more than a few seconds for you to uncross your legs and place your feet upon the floor, _properly_. Not only do you look childish, you’re probably sullying your clothes! Your uniform is of much more expensive fabric than that of ours, and yet you—“

The assault on Claude’s ears ceased as the classroom doors creaked open.

The class quieting down was usual, but Lorenz’s questioning hum was enough to pique his interest. Claude untucked his feet from under him, one gold-heeled foot tapping down on the stone floor as he turned to look over his shoulder.

“Sylvain requested to transfer,” Byleth said in lieu of greeting, walking up the center aisle to the teacher’s table. The student in question trailed behind her, looking around for somewhere to sit.

Despite eight pairs of eyes on him, Sylvain seemed to hold an easy air of confidence. His posture suggested the lax appearance of a slacker, as all the rumors suggested, but Claude guessed that there was something more to it—he’d cared enough to be swayed by Teach’s prowess, after all. Or maybe it was because he’d wanted someone in their class—Hilda, maybe? It was too early to tell. 

_“Hel-lo,_ new classmates,” Sylvain drawled, catching Hilda’s eye and winking. Hilda giggled into her hand. “I think I’m gonna like it here.”

“There’s an empty seat next to Claude at the front,” Teach flipped through a notebook they had somewhere in their coat. “You said you wanted a front row seat, correct?”

“Uh, right.” Sylvain looked back, forlorn, at the empty desk in the back that he’d been going for. Claude smiled to himself, turning to face the front of the room. 

Teach nodded, setting down the notebook and walking over to the board. Claude watched Sylvain slide into the seat on his left from his peripheral view. 

“Damn, first day and I’m already next to the house leader. Hey.”

“Hey,” Claude pulled up the corners of his mouth as he eyed him. “Thought you were supposed to go back to the Blue Lions this month.”

“Eh, I guess I might stick around.” Sylvain leaned in a little, eyes half-lidded and mouth pulled up in a smirk. “I think that deer are such beautiful and mysterious creatures, don’t you?”

Behind them, Lorenz made a sound that sounded like a dying chicken as the arrow Leonie was fashioning caught onto his clothes.

“That’s true,” Claude agreed, mirroring his smirk. He rested his chin in his hand, winking, “But they’re kind of cautious, too—especially of threats. . .like, say, lions.”

“Aw, I don’t bite. Promise.”

“That’s a shame.”

Sylvain’s eyebrows flew up. His cheeks, already rosy enough, were stained a deeper red. “Well! Someone who can keep up. I made the right choice, clearly.”

“Oh, may the goddess help us all,” said Lorenz, to Leonie, as he pulled on his sleeve. “There’s two of them.”

-

“I guess it’s only natural that Sylvain transferred into our class,” Hilda said, walking in step with Claude as they headed towards the dormitories. “After assisting last month, and now considering the mission for this one. . .it’s gotta have something to do with the Kingdom noble that stole Gautier’s Relic, right?”

“Probably,” Claude hummed. “The guy’s a disowned son of House Gautier, so yeah, it’s possible.”

“Geez, there’s been a lot going on in the Kingdom lately, huh? First the whole thing with the Western Church, and now rogue nobles from Gautier. . .” Hilda made a face. “And then _we_ keep getting sent to clean it up! Shouldn’t it fall to the Blue Lions, since it’s their territory anyway? The actual Blue Lions have such an easy mission.”

“Ah. You’re forgetting to factor in Teach,” Claude smiled wryly. “Despite their age, _and_ their inexperience with the Church, Rhea seems to have unshakable faith in them. I bet these jobs would go to whichever house Teach picked.”

“Ugh, you’re right, she even let them have the Sword of the Creator, that thing looks terrifying, all red and glowy. Hey, since the Professor’s got a weapon like that now, maybe they’d let me take a step back from the frontlines! I keep telling them that the battlefield is no place for a young, fragile maiden like me. . .”

Claude snorted, thinking back to the last mission. Hilda had taken on about three big armored knights with nothing but an axe and came out merely complaining that she was sweaty and broke a nail. “I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

“Ugh!” Hilda stomped. “Well, if I’m going to be breaking my poor, _delicate_ back taking all the first hits, won’t you be a dear and come with me into town? Since you’re such a thoughtful classmate, aren’t you, Claude?”

“No can do, find some other poor fellow to carry your bags for you,” Claude smirked, raising a hand to wave. “And on that note, I’ll be heading back to my room now. Happy shopping!”

“Rude!” Hilda called as he walked away, whining to herself, “Well, whatever, I guess I can ask our newest house member. . .”

Claude shook his head and laughed as he ascended the dormitory stairs. He was interested to see how _that_ would all pan out, really, but he had a freshly borrowed stack of history and tactics books from the library and they weren’t going to read themselves.

He’d have plenty of opportunities to learn about their new recruit over the year, anyway. 

-

Admittedly, Sylvain fit in quicker than Claude would have expected of anyone else. About two weeks in and he was already bantering with Lorenz, riling up Lysithea, chatting with Ignatz about art, and flirting with Hilda. He was almost jealous, actually—when Claude first arrived at the monastery he had to push through nearly all the nobles’ suspicion and curiosity, as well his own inexperience with people. 

Though maybe that was Claude’s problem—despite all the false flattery and flowery language, Sylvain put much more effort into it. Claude was more likely to drop a line here and there then disappear somewhere else after school, only running into others by accident. Part of it was that he _was_ busy researching all he could about Fodlan and the monastery and thinking up ways to bridge the gap between Fodlan and Almyra, but he’d be lying if he said that his unfamiliarity with any sort of deep friendship played no part in it. 

And as with the others, Sylvain’s friendliness extended to even him—inviting him out to ‘pick up girls’ together, offering to treat him out to dinner, asking him about archery. 

The real kicker had been when he’d stepped in and helped with Claude’s form during lance training, physically adjusting his limbs. Claude had never met anyone so bold as to actually step into his personal space for friendly reasons, and it threw him off guard. 

Sylvain’s hands over his own had been just a bit larger and very warm, the skin of his palms rough but pleasant to the touch. Claude, embarrassingly, had found the memory of it hovering at the edge of his thoughts for days, feeling warm and heavy phantom weights on his hands. It was unsettling, and even more so that Claude sometimes considered experiencing it again. 

He’d made sure to pay extra effort to wielding lances properly, after that. 

-

“So, you like horses, too?” Sylvain asked, brushing a comb through the horse’s mane. 

“Yeah, I like long rides.” Claude looked for the fodder. “They’re peaceful.”

“Yeah, it’s—hey there, beautiful,” Sylvain waved at another student bringing a horse back to the stables. “Would you like some help with that?”

“We aren’t even finished yet,” Claude commented, shaking his head. 

“It’s only polite,” Sylvain said. “I don’t let beautiful people pass by without comment. For example, you’ve got gorgeous eyes, you know that?”

“Nice try.” Claude replied. “You forget I work with Hilda. I’ve heard it all.”

“Have you heard how lovely you look when the sunlight hits your face? How about your voice, as steady and calm as flowing water? Your quiet charm, as bright and captivating as the sun. Your heart, warm and loving.”

“Wow.” 

“No?”

“You sound like a bad romance novel,” Claude laughed a little. “Do you get your lines from those?”

“Uh, well—hm, I knew that one was a long shot. Thought I’d catch you off guard.” Sylvain scratched the back of his head, laughing. “You’re a tough one. I’ll find something.”

“Good luck with that,” Claude said, smirking to himself. “I’ve been told I’m something of an enigma.”

Sylvain narrowed his eyes, and Claude caught a glimpse of something underneath—something sharper.

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll figure you out.”

“Not before I do,” Claude replied, eyes sparking with a challenge. 

-

“So is Sylvain really that touchy or should I start getting worried?” Claude asked Hilda as they walked. Classes had just ended, and Claude still felt the weight of Sylvain’s arm around his shoulder. He had to figure out a way to subtly avoid it—otherwise Sylvain was going to figure it out and the game would be over. And Claude would have nearly a year’s worth of embarrassment to look forward to.

Hilda laughed, “Sylvain’s a touchy guy. I don’t think he knows what personal space is, unless you tell him to back off. Ooh, has our house leader fallen so quickly? Who knew all it would take was a couple of well-placed touches?”

Claude rolled his eyes, “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not that easily swayed.”

“ _You’re_ being ridiculous,” Hilda retorted. “You aren’t entirely immune to his charms, I’d know. I saw the way you looked when he helped you with your lance training.”

Drat.

“So how many favors before you forget about that?” Claude asked.

“Hm, at least twenty!” 

-

Maybe it was because Claude had gone so long without physical touch—even when he’d been a kid, he hadn’t made much friends his own age, but Nader had been enough: constant hair-ruffling, headlocks, painful slaps on the shoulder, and the occasional hug. His parents were just as affectionate, whenever he saw them. 

It was just one of the many things Claude never considered when he left for Fódlan, like missing Almyran food or how the atmosphere felt like, talking with someone in his mother tongue and letting the words flow out naturally—even better, talking with his mother and being able to talk in the most comfortable mix of Almyran and Fódlan and still be understood; but he’d have to make do. 

Maybe he just needed a good hug. Raphael hugged everyone else all the damn time, how could Claude get one of those? What kind of scheme would he have to employ? 

People already called him weird. Maybe he could just run up to Raphael or Sylvain and get a quick one in and run away before they could think anything of it, and they’d chalk it up to a hallucination. No, Claude had already heard enough talk about himself.

Fingers snapped in front of his face. He looked up at Sylvain, who still had his elbow propped up on Claude’s shoulder. Ahead of them, people were picking up training bows and lining up by the targets.

“The professor finished talking about a minute ago, we’re supposed to practice archery now,” he said, smiling confusedly. “What were you thinking about?”

“Tactics,” Claude said. 

-

The air up at Conand Tower was harsh and biting—Claude wished he had thicker clothing. The halls were definitely not wide enough as the fields they used for practice, and it was easy to get swarmed by bandits and armored units. Some of the archers on the platform at the top even managed to get a couple of shots in, wounding Marianne and Lysithea. 

But Teach had a knack for predicting enemy movements with unnerving accuracy, and they managed to push through to the top with little injuries. They’d left Gilbert to fend off the reinforcements. 

It was all going quite swimmingly, Claude did say so himself, until Sylvain’s brother literally got eaten by his Relic.

-

It was a harrowing fight—the others had expressed reluctance to attack the newly formed beast, and Claude himself couldn’t say that he didn’t feel the same. But orders were orders, and they followed Teach’s calls to subdue the monster.

They were all tired and past their limits, and it showed—there was one last bit of armor plating on the beast and everyone had already exhausted themselves, unable to move properly. Marianne had run out of power for healing spells, Lysithea was swaying on her feet, and Ignatz’ hands shook with increasing strain for every arrow he nocked. 

Then the beast made a horrible gurgling roar that sounded like Miklan but ten times louder and rougher, and leapt forward—towards Sylvain. 

And maybe that meant that there was still some of Miklan Gautier left in there—that there was still a person somewhere in the center of that writhing mass of burnt flesh and oozing tar—but Claude wasn’t about to let Sylvain die over a morality dilemma. He was running before Teach had even called out the order.

Sylvain had frozen in place, clutching his lance in a death grip and watching the beast come towards him with wide eyes. He’d fallen out of his defensive stance, looking for all the world like he’d slipped into some kind of trance. 

Claude nocked an arrow and took aim, hitting the last armor plate and sending shards of metal skittering over the stone floor. The beast stumbled back on its hind legs, letting out a scream that was unsettlingly human-like.

Well. That was going to haunt his dreams. 

Sylvain stumbled back like he’d been hit as well, looking over his shoulder. His chest was heaving. Claude met his eyes briefly before looking away, hearing Teach yelling for Lorenz and Raphael to tag team the beast while it was dazed. 

Lorenz fired a succession of fire spells as Raphael charged the monster, stopping just in time for the latter to uppercut the beast’s jaw with his gauntlets. 

The beast—Miklan—screeched one last time before collapsing. Raphael leapt backwards as it fell forward, blobs of black substance splattering everywhere as it crashed onto the floor. 

Claude, along with everyone else, watched in sickening horror as the beast’s flesh fell off with wet squelches, uncovering Miklan’s still form and slithering back to the Relic still clutched in his hand. 

The crest stone glowed a sinister shade of red before dying back down.

Raphael flicked his hands, looking down at some of the black mass crawling off his hands and back to the crest stone. He flicked them off violently, making a surprised sound.

“Okay, uh. . .” He lurched, dropping his gauntlets. “You guys. . . gotta ’scuse me for a sec.”

He ran over to one of the ledges and started throwing up over the edge. Leonie hurried over to assist him, digging in her pockets to pull out vulneraries. Marianne and Ignatz hovered near them, unsure. 

While everyone’s attention was centered on them, Claude paid his to Sylvain.

Claude watched him stand over his brother’s broken body, still curled over the Lance of Ruin in his death. He caught the split second of overwhelmed relief in his expression before it shifted into something unreadable, his eyes hardening. 

Someone poked lightly at Claude’s shoulder. 

“Gather the others,” Teach told Claude. “I’ll talk to Sylvain.”

-

In the wake of his brother’s death, Sylvain seemed to hold no grief. Rumors seemed to kick up a notch, even, about how the young noble was still breaking hearts and staying out all night as usual.

In class, he acted no different, still cracking jokes during lessons and making the occasional comment about a girl whenever he could. But Claude watched him more closely than most.

It all felt like an act, watching how quick Sylvain seemed to change expressions and tones as he saw fit. If Claude hadn’t seen the way he looked at his brother’s body, he never would’ve suspected anything off nor thought to watch him more closely. 

But it wasn’t as if he could do anything with the knowledge, anyway. Sylvain was slippery, and any subtle hints Claude could drop about being open to talk were rebutted, just as subtly. It was all like a delicate game of chess, and all it seemed to do was leave Claude all the more. . .desperate for answers, for lack of a better term.

-

“How is Sylvain?” Dimitri asked awkwardly, at lunch with Teach. Claude eyed the delicate way he held his utensils, like they were fragile porcelain instead of metal.

Claude looked at Teach.

“He’s well,” Teach said.

“Ah. That is. . .good to hear,” Dimitri said.

Claude sighed, and tried not to look too amused.

“He’s doing well in class,” Claude volunteered the information Dimitri was probably after. “He likes to spend his time with Hilda and Marianne, mostly. Aside from Lysithea complaining that he ‘engages in too much fake flattery’, he’s fit right in.”

But maybe Byleth’s sparse verbal skill had a silver lining, judging by the barely concealed sadness in Dimitri’s expression. Claude could use this.

“But that’s all basic stuff, you probably already know that, huh? Isn’t Sylvain one of your childhood friends?”

“As of late,” Dimitri looked down at his plate. “He hasn’t spoken to us—well, me and Ingrid all that much. Felix—I don’t know. But either way. . .I admit I am concerned. Especially considering the circumstances of your last mission.”

Dimitri looked so much like a kicked puppy that Claude felt bad. Even Byleth was frowning, their eyebrows turned down. 

“I’ll try to see what’s eating at him,” Claude offered. He didn’t need it, but an excuse to prod at Sylvain helped.

“Ah, I could not—please do not do anything underhanded to find this information,” Dimitri said, although he had perked up significantly. 

“My prince,” Claude sighed, resting his chin in his hand and winking, “You know I would _never_.”

Byleth snorted.

-

He really didn’t, though.

He had been planning to gather intel from Hilda with the promise of treating her out in town like she was always suggesting, but in the end Sylvain did all the work for him.

“Hey, Clau—wait, is that a board game?” Sylvain bent his head to try to take a look at the box Claude carried under his arm. 

“This? Yeah, Teach gave it to me.” He handed it over. “The eastern merchant had a new one.”

“What’s it about?” Sylvain balanced it on one arm and peeked inside. “Are these little houses?”

“It’s a strategy game, something about land conquest,” Claude said, trying not to let his smile get too wide in the face of success. “Wanna play? Winner gets a prize.”

-

“The ideas people can come up with are really brilliant,” Sylvain mused, leaning back on his hand and holding up one of the little wood models up to the light. 

Claude hummed, cross-legged on the grass, squinting at the board as he turned a desert tile over and over. He placed three of his yellow houses on a desert section of the map. 

There were four quadrants on the board, made up of randomly picked tiles of different terrains so the map could change with every round. A stack of terrain tiles were set aside, and with every turn they picked one to determine where they could put their pieces. There were extra tiles to pick three conditional strategies from, for a greater amount of points. Points were rounded up at the end of the game. 

“You’re up to something,” Sylvain accused, pushing off his hand to lean closer to the board. He narrowed his eyes, setting his chin down on a hand. “I just can’t figure out what it is.”

“Me?” Claude said, faux innocently. “I’d say I’m pretty close to losing, actually—all your houses are lined up right here. It’s a textbook win, I’m afraid.”

“Stop playing the underdog.” Sylvain pointed a finger, using his other hand to pick a tile from the stack. “There’s got to be a reason why your houses are all over the place. Ugh, I wanted a forest tile.”

Sylvain had focused on one quadrant, effectively securing a great amount of points by keeping his houses close together. 

But it was the last turn, and Claude loved it when a plan came together. 

“Oh.” Sylvain blinked, as Claude placed his last piece smack dab in the center of the board. “The merchant strategy tile.”

“Yup.” Claude popped the p, grinning. 

“You connected all the quadrants,” Sylvain got up on his knees to get a wider look at the board. “Holy shit, those weren’t random patterns, you were just building them up and waiting for the last moment to connect. That’s _plus seven_ for every connected quadrant.”

“Bigger picture, Gautier,” Claude said. “Let’s round up the points.”

Sylvain volunteered to do it, and he’d done it so fast that Claude guessed he had already been counting in his head all throughout and just added up Claude’s bonuses at the end. It was close; Claude got a thrill out of beating Sylvain by exactly three points. Sylvain laughed as they swept up the pieces and started packing up. 

“Not bad,” he told Claude. “Not bad at all.”

“I try.” Claude didn’t bother hiding his smug smile. “You didn’t do too bad for yourself. You definitely would’ve beaten me if I didn’t manage to pull off that last move.”

“We should do this more often. All I had to play with back then were Dimitri, Felix, and Ingrid—and all three of them are _terrible_ at board games.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, Felix got so mad once that he flipped the damn table and Dimitri broke the board when he tried to catch it. Ingrid was yelling all our ears off even if it was just Felix’s fault.” Sylvain frowned, pausing in the middle of gathering up the tiles. “I never did get that game replaced.”

“You guys still play?” Even if he was gleaning for information, Claude still felt something tug at him. He wondered what it was like to grow up together with friends like Dimitri and the rest of them. It wasn’t wistful or sad—just strange, another thing to add to the list that made him feel like he was looking through a window from the outside. Awkward and out of place. 

“Nah, they don’t enjoy it that much anyway. Although I guess Dimitri’s still up for a game every now and then. . .” Sylvain’s eyes were sharp.

“Might be,” Claude said, his light tone contrasted by the calculating look he was giving the other. “Maybe you should offer His Highness a round?”

“Tell him I’ll come when I’m ready.”

Sylvain was sharper than he let on.

-

If there was anything to be gained from it, though, it was that they _did_ end up playing quite regularly. Teach gifted both of them with board games often enough that they almost always had something new to play, besides chess. 

They weren’t always good—Sylvain hated the one where there were drawings compressed into square boards and they had to race to spot a specific illustration first, complaining that Claude was the one with an archer’s eyesight and therefore had the natural advantage. Sylvain had squinted throughout the entirety of the game. Claude hated the one where there were no teams opposing each other and their pieces were simply ‘tourists’ travelling in a straight line across the board and gathering ‘coins’, citing that it was boring.

There were unexpectedly fun ones—like the one where the board was made up of maze tiles, and they had the opportunity to shift one at the end of each turn. Claude had a grand old time derailing Sylvain’s piece instead of using it to reach the exit of the ‘labyrinth’, and eventually it became a game of who could send whose piece farther back, complete with fake personas for their pieces—Claude had named his Seteth and they fell into an uncontrollable fit of giggles when Sylvain plucked off a blade of grass and fashioned it into a small wig for the piece. 

“ _Sir_ Fraldarius, may I remind you that you are in no position to—oh goddess, it appears my wig has fallen,” Claude had continued to talk in Seteth’s voice when he had moved his piece and the grass fell off. Sylvain threw his head back laughing and collapsed backwards into the grass. “Please, avert your— _pfft—_ “

“ _Die_!” Sylvain wheezed, which had been the only line for his piece for most of the game. Claude’s shoulders shook as he covered his face and laughed into his palms.

Silliness aside, every game came with a prize—ranging from Claude asking his questions to Sylvain asking to treat him to dinner. It was a good arrangement, and Claude often found himself struggling to keep a smile off his face when he thought about it.

-

One morning, Leonie had passed along the message that they were to come to the classroom earlier than usual. 

“Good, you’re all here,” She said, a foot up on the bench by her usual table and her elbow resting on her knee. 

“If you would refrain from getting dirt on the furniture,” Lorenz said. Leonie ignored him.

“What’s this about?” Hilda rubbed at her eyes. “I need my beauty sleep, you know!”

“I was talking to Captain Jeralt yesterday, and he said that the professor’s birthday is soon.” Leonie paused. “Like. . .tomorrow kind of soon.”

“They never said!” Hilda gasped, straightening. “We need to do something!”

They spent the morning brainstorming for ideas. Claude was annoyed that he’d only heard of it now, and not at least a couple of days prior so that a proper birthday feast could have still been in the options. But eventually they settled on giving Teach a gift and a collection of letters from all of them, in a box to be painted by Ignatz.

“It’s settled but. . .how about the gift itself? What will it be?” Lysithea asked.

They sat in silence for a moment. 

“Well, Hilda makes jewelry,” Leonie started.

“Hey, I’m not going to do all the work!” Hilda whined. “Besides, I’m not that good anyway.”

“Just bring your stuff in later and we’ll figure it out,” Claude shrugged. “We can all pitch in with the actual crafting.”

“Okay, but you guys better not waste my materials.” 

Then Teach had entered, and everyone scurried back to their seats and tried to look innocent. 

Later that evening, they’d all congregated around a table in the reception hall, armed with papers and Hilda’s tools. 

“Okay, so I was thinking,” Hilda tapped at one of the boxes she’d brought. “A bracelet would be fairly simple, and everyone can help with it. We can all make charms and tack them onto a chain or a leather band.”

“I’m not quite familiar with the ways of the artisan,” Lorenz admitted, prompting Sylvain and Lysithea to second his statement.

“Ugh, okay, um. . .” Hilda divided them into pairs to work on charms, those who had at least some knowledge about jewelry crafts and those who knew nothing. She paired Raphael with Lorenz, Leonie with Lysithea, Marianne with Hilda herself, and Sylvain with. . .

“Claude,” she said in a sing-song voice, smirking.

Claude cursed her in his mind and resolved to get Teach to assign her to a week of weeding duty somehow.

“So, what do we do?” Sylvain asked him, toying with some of the gemstones in one of the many boxes Hilda had brought. “I didn’t know you had experience in this stuff, by the way.”

“Anything’s good fuel for a scheme,” Claude said. Sylvain gave him an intrigued look. 

Claude didn’t elaborate, because he had never actually used it in a scheme before. It was just because he used to make jewelry for his mother for some of her birthdays when he was younger, wanting to be more creative when he went about gift-giving. But Sylvain didn’t need to know that.

“Right, so, maybe something with resin,” Claude suggested. 

“The clear stuff, right?” Sylvain picked up some blue beads, rolling them in his palm. “Maybe we can make a shape out of it and drop a couple of these in.”

“Not a bad idea,” Claude agreed, looking over at the selection of things Hilda had brought. He saw Leonie rummaging through one of the boxes and put aside a roll of golden wire. “Wait, we can do that and make some little deer antlers out of wire.”

“I think I can do that.”

They set about working; Claude prepared the resin and mold for the pendant and Sylvain fiddled with the wire. At some point he looked to see Sylvain struggling to bend it the way he wanted, a focused expression on his face. His tongue poked out a little and the pieces of wire looked ridiculously thin and small in his hands, almost like thread.

 _Cute_ , Claude thought. He couldn’t help but smile slightly.

Then he’d caught himself and controlled his expression more diligently, subtly looking around to see if anyo—Hilda was grinning at him, next to Marianne who was clumsily stringing beads onto small pieces of wire. 

Claude scowled at her and went back to his work, with a little more force than necessary.

In the end Sylvain managed to fashion a crude but recognizable set of tiny antlers, and Claude fixed them up in resin.

“Okay, all that’s left is to wait, right?”

“Mm-hm,” Claude pushed the mold over to Hilda, who took it and placed it next to the glittering flower charm Lysithea and Leonie made out of beads and gemstones. Raphael was still trying to talk Lorenz through making a charm out of animal bone. “Hilda will take it from there.”

Lorenz took a long time, citing that perfection was a delicate and time-consuming art. It all worked out anyway, since the resin would take a long time.

While waiting, Lysithea had brought out a book and Leonie ended up asking her to teach her a little bit of magic. Marianne continued fiddling with the leather band for the bracelet, adding gems and beads. Sylvain chatted with Ignatz while the artist painted the gift box, the two discussing art history and the art in the audience chamber on the second floor. 

Hilda started picking up gemstones and pressing them onto Claude’s face, saying that she was bored and wanted to practice makeup. 

Claude hummed, considering it. He wouldn’t deny that he hadn’t been at least a little curious.

“I’m already handsome enough as it is, do you think they could handle it if you prettied me up even more?” Claude teased, but leaned into it anyway when Hilda grabbed his face. 

“Don’t you want to find out?” Hilda replied, digging into her bag with one hand. She giggled, whispering, “Maybe find out what a certain. . .redhead would say?”

“Okay, I’m leaving. Bye.”

“Wait, I was kidding! Honest!”

“Ow!” Claude was hauled back by a firm grip. “Okay, fine, but keep it simple, alright?”

“You got it.” Hilda grinned, getting up and rounding the table to the other side to sit next to him. “My brother just sent me this new lip gloss—I don’t think it suits me, but I’ve been thinking and it’ll definitely make _you_ look spectacular.”

“I said simple.” Claude let her turn him sideways, his back to Sylvain’s. 

“It is, don’t worry!”

Hilda had asked him to close his eyes for the first part, which had been trouble—she threatened to glue his eyes shut if he didn’t quit trying to open them and peek—and it ended in Claude’s eyes watering and with the weird feeling stuff stuck around his eyes. He kind of felt like scratching at it.

“This doesn’t feel simple.”

“It’s just a few gems and eyeliner, relax, yeesh.” Hilda said, bringing out a tube of lip gloss. She showed Claude, “Look, it’s gold. Gold looks best on you and it’ll really make it _pop_. If you like it I’ll even let you have it—yellow just doesn’t suit me.”

“There!” She said, sucking her lips in and showing Claude to press his lips together to spread the pigment. “ _Ooh_ , you look amazing! You should go like this to the ball.”

“Oh, wow, she’s right,” Leonie gave him a thumbs up. There was soot on her clothes and fingers from trying to spark flame magic. “You look great.”

“Oh, Hilda, show me!” Raphael said excitedly. “Maybe I can do this with Maya when I get home, it’ll be good bonding.”

“Oh, alright, I’ll show you how with Lorenz, since I’ve already done Lysithea before,” Hilda said, winking at Lorenz who had a pensive look on his face as he stared.

“Uh—I—that will not be—“ Lorenz stuttered, but he looked unsure. “I mean, perhaps. Fine. To help Raphael. And show that I would look much better than Claude, anyway.”

“That’s the spirit! We’ll make a heartthrob out of you yet, we just need to do something about that hair of yours.”

“My father insisted it be cut this way, in the time old Gloucester tradition,” Lorenz muttered, reaching up to fuss with his bangs. 

“Speaking of heartbreakers, we need the resident one to judge—Sylvain! Yoohoo!” Hilda snapped her fingers, interrupting Sylvain and Ignatz’ debate. “Look, what do you think of our house leader?”

“Aren’t I a sight?” Claude tacked on, giving him a wink and grin as he turned. Claude wasn’t one to turn down compliments for his looks, and for once he felt rather good about it.

Sylvain had turned around the same time, mouth already stretched in a flirty grin, and froze. He was silent for a moment. 

“Uh— _yeahhh_ ,” Sylvain dragged out, his voice pitching upwards. “Dimples.”

“Huh?”

“I mean! Yup, yeah, good work Hilda. Good work,” Sylvain nodded, “You look gorgeous. Amazing. You look like a damn sun god.” He said that last part lowly, almost as if to himself.

“Well. . .thank you.” Claude felt flustered, for some reason. It was good Sylvain wasn’t looking at him too closely anymore. 

“No problem!” Sylvain blurted. “I mean, no, that’s not right. _I_ should be thanking you, I love looking at beautiful people.”

He heard Hilda snickering behind him. Claude would find some way to ruffle her feathers next time.

-

“Hey, has anyone ever told you,” Sylvain slid in next to Claude on the bench, “that you have _gorgeous_ eyes? That shade of green. . .I’ve never seen it before.”

“That’s funny, I see it myself everytime I lay eyes on most plants. Don’t you?” Claude asked, continuing to write without pause. 

“Uh—“ He would be lying if he said that it wasn’t fun watching Sylvain try to continue when he expected Claude to indulge his flirting. “Well—you know it’s because I’m too busy being lost in your eyes. . .”

“You should get that checked out, that sounds bad.”

Sylvain narrowed his eyes. “Well, maybe you’d like to? Check me out over dinner?”

“I don’t think checking someone’s eyes is good first date material?” Claude put on a mock worried tone. “That’s not very romantic of you.”

“Look, I—okay, I’m here to ask you for something.” Sylvain admitted. 

“Okay, shoot.” Claude held back a laugh. 

“So, remember the whole thing with my brother last last moon?”

“The one where we all barely escaped with our lives and limbs, yes.”

“His group of bandits are causing a ruckus back in Gautier territory. My father ordered me to get rid of them, but I figure I could use some backup.”

“By yourself?” Claude’s brow knotted. “Isn’t that kind of harsh?”

“Yeah, that’s just how my old man is. I think he’s testing me or something, he did it with me and Miklan all the time when we were kids.”

Claude blinked. “That’s. . .huh.”

“Yeah, weird guy, right? Anyway, I wanted to ask you if you would come with me this weekend. To take them out. I already asked the Blue Lions and the professor to chaperone.” 

“Just me?” Claude laughed. “Now, why would a deer willingly stroll into a den of lions?”

“If he wanted to get bitten,” Sylvain shot back, looking more at ease.

“Too true,” Claude slipped back into another act with ease, smiling flirtatiously. “Alright, lion man, put me down. . .on the list, I mean.”

He took satisfaction in the way Sylvain looked at him like he was a mystery to figure out. Good. 

-

“Claude, glad you could accompany us!” Dimitri nodded at him as he loaded a pack onto his horse. The other Lions were doing similar things, loading weapons and the like. “Have you readied your things? Where are your weapons?”

“Teach’s got it,” Claude shrugged, showing Dimitri his relatively smaller pack. “They always take care of the weapons and whatnot, but totally forget the food and, you know, other essential, life-dependent stuff. So I make sure to cover that.”

“Ah, how thoughtful of them.”

As if on cue, Teach turned the corner, holding different lances, axes, and bows in their arms.

“I bought you a new bow,” Their voice sounded, from behind the weapons. “Its’s silver.”

“Professor! Let me assist you.” Dimitri rushed forward, lifting the whole pile off with ease. “Are all these for Claude and Sylvain? Isn’t this a bit much?”

“My father always taught me to be prepared,” Byleth said. “They will be well-equipped.”

“Yeah, it’s true,” Sylvain piped up. “We’ve all gotten creative trying to carry everything the professor gives us.”

“The archers and Raphael have the short end of the stick,” Claude added. 

“Don’t these cost a lot?” asked Dimitri, frowning, “Professor, I hope you don’t neglect your own needs.”

“I sell mystical fish from the pond on the weekends,” Byleth explained. “And also gold we pickpocket off bandits.”

”Aren’t we supposed to turn those in for church funds?”

-

The Lions were welcoming—mostly welcoming, Claude revised, as he spotted Felix way up ahead, his horse moving at a quick trot to avoid everyone. 

“I think he pretends he’s some lone wolf roaming the land, trusting no one and nothing but his sword,” Sylvain had muttered lowly to Claude. “Meanwhile the rest of us lug behind him, prepared to step in when he inevitably bites off more than he can chew.”

So far, he’d stuck to riding a little ahead of Sylvain and Ashe, making occasional small talk with Annette and Mercedes. He’d been delighted to find out that the latter was extremely knowledgeable about herbs and plants, and made the most of the opportunity to learn more. Dedue had even been pulled into the conversation a couple of times, sharing what he knew about properties of plants native to Duscur. Sometimes, Ashe jumped in, but mostly withdrew after with a nervous look at Claude. Claude made a mental note to try to get the other archer to warm up to him later.

“So, the extract from the root is fatal,” Mercedes said, “But recently it’s been discovered that a small amount of it won’t kill you—it can act as a sleeping draught!”

“That’s fascinating,” Claude was leaning to the point of almost falling off his horse. “It’s actually the same with a lot of plants, using different amounts changes the effect drastically. I forgot who said it first, but the difference between poison and medicine is the _dosage_ —which is just, it’s just brilliant, isn’t it? It’s like the two sides of a coin, really.”

“Yes, come to think of it I. . .”

Claude felt eyes on him, an invisible caress down his back. He turned his head, the remains of a grin still on his face, and found Sylvain quietly watching them, a strange look on his face. 

Claude smiled confusedly at him. Sylvain jolted, and started to open his mouth but got interrupted by Annette’s yelling.

“Mercie! You put poisonous herbs in a pipe _and_ _smoked them_?!”

Claude’s head snapped back.“You _what_?”

-

“Got ‘em,” Sylvain said as he rode back to the party, gesturing for everyone to follow. “It’s perfect timing, they’re just in the middle of raiding the town.”

He brought his horse closer to Claude.

“Okay, so—“ said Sylvain, to Byleth and the house leaders present. “Presumably the thieves are all scattered towards the center. I asked one of the townspeople hiding outside the gates and apparently there’s a main entrance and four smaller exits at each corner of the place, all gated. The only open one is the main entrance, since it’s sundown.”

“So we gather at the main entrance and spread out to subdue the thieves, chase them out,” Dimitri said. “Four groups?”

Claude was about to suggest spreading out and just positioning themselves at the exits and waiting for the thieves to come to them, a plan forming in his mind, but Sylvain beat him to the punch.

“Well, that could work, but—“ He paused, “maybe we could take out the exits first. Knowing the way these kinds of groups work, they’ll probably have people guarding the exits. I guess we could split into two—Ashe is good at picking locks, right? Ashe and some of the others will come in from the northeast exit and work their way down, and we’ll take the main and work our way west to the strongholds. Ten of us, so two to an exit? Short range and long range. The last two will go into town and stir up the thieves so they come running to the exits, and we can get back whatever they stole. I’m thinking you and Felix.”

Claude knew, in theory, that Sylvain had a knack for tactics. Hilda had told him as much after they’d rescued Flayn while Claude had been stuck helping treat Manuela at the infirmary and trying to get ahold of Rhea. Sylvain was good at the board games they’d played too, beating Claude as much as he lost to him.

That being said, seeing it in action was—something else, Claude concluded, feeling his face heat rapidly. He wasn’t sure why. He was delighted to have someone with a talent for strategy on his team. The more Sylvain had gone into his plan, the more Claude had wanted to—what? _What?_

“Claude?” Teach tapped him on the shoulder, “what do you think?”

“Uh—yes, what he said.” Claude kind of wanted to press his palms against his face to cool his face down. He was glad the sun was setting and the light was dim. “Sylvain, I mean. But keep Dimitri to defend the main entrance—or Felix, I don’t know.”

Dimitri chuckled, “No, Felix will definitely have to be the one to rile up the bandits—otherwise we’ll have an unguarded entrance on our hands. He’ll be quite satisfied with this arrangement.”

“I’ll leave the pairings to you?” Sylvain looked at Byleth. They nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”

Claude pushed the weird feelings away to examine later and grabbed one of his bows.

-

It all went perfectly. Sylvain’s plan had been flawless. Claude noted that he’d have to get him to participate more in tactics class.

The townspeople had been grateful, and offered them free lodging and accommodation as thanks. They’d all gathered around the fireplace after a hot meal, discussing the fight. 

Dimitri made sure to compliment and commend everyone, even Claude and Byleth. He’d told Felix that his swordwork was superb but that he’d have to learn a little more restraint. Felix told him to fuck off. Byleth told him he was a very rude man. Felix told them to fuck off as well. 

Claude was thinking of a way he could rile up Felix and get away with it in one piece, tensing his jaw when he felt his teeth begin to chatter. He’d already clothed himself in as many layers as he could, but nothing helped the chill. And he’d thought the _monastery_ was cold. 

“Oh, Claude, are you cold?” Mercedes’ question turned everyone’s heads toward him.

“Um.” Claude was sitting on his hands, his frame tense in an effort not to tremble. “What makes you say that? I’m _perfect_.”

“Before we left you told me that you were ‘a child of summer’ and that you ‘fear irreversible transformation into an icicle once the harsh winds of the ice kingdom touches your delicately handsome face’,” said Byleth.

“Ah. Betrayal.”

“You’re shivering like a leaf,” Sylvain said, amused.

Claude tried to think of something funny to say but concluded that the ice must have spread to his brain as well. He grumbled, adjusting his position over his already gloved hands. His rear was the final source of heat he had. Maybe he could make a joke about how his ass was so hot that it weathered even Faerghus’ brand of winter.

Abruptly, something soft and warm enveloped his torso and part of his legs. The heat felt glorious. Claude looked up to see Sylvain sans cloak, grinning. 

“Better?” He asked, with the same doting tone Claude used on Lysithea. Claude was too tired to feel annoyed.

“Thanks,” he muttered instead, pulling the teal cloak closed and pulling it up enough that the fur brushed his ears and nose.

A burn traveled up his nose. He wrinkled his nose, then pulled the cloak down quickly to sneeze, his head bobbing forward abruptly. He was grateful he didn’t sneeze loudly, otherwise Ingrid might get on his case again about conducting himself more noble-y and proper. He didn’t need another Lorenz.

He pulled the cloak back up again, glaring into the distance and pulling up his feet up to wrap himself up completely.

“Sylvain, are you alright?” asked Dimitri, concerned, from the other side of the fireplace. “You look like you’re about to burst.”

“Hm?” Sylvain’s voice was pitched higher than usual. “What? No. No, I’m fine, I’m fine. . .I was just thinking of making his Dukeliness over here share the cloak as payment.”

Claude looked at him hesitantly. He imagined sharing the cloak with Sylvain, limbs pressed together impossibly close. He briefly thought about tucking his freezing face in the crook of the other’s probably warm neck and found that it wasn’t necessary anyway, since he felt fire beginning to travel up his neck.

“Well, I. . .guess it’s only fair.” He said tersely, starting to pull it open reluctantly. If Sylvain were to brush the slightest part of any exposed skin Claude was pretty sure he’d die right then and there.

“Relax, I’m joking,” Sylvain smiled, though it was tense around the edges. “You need it more than I do. For me? This is like taking a stroll around the monastery grounds in the early morning.”

“Which you do plenty of,” Ingrid interjected, “since you’re so fond of wandering the streets so late into the night like a maniac that you don’t return until dawn.”

“Are you ever gonna let me catch a break, Ingrid? Me? Your dearest, oldest friend?”

“Not on your life.”

-

Claude inspected the half-broken pitcher, trying to see if there was anything left in it. His arms ached and protested but he pushed through it, telling himself there was no better opportunity to investigate than now. 

Remire had been a small but hospitable village, welcoming to Claude and the other house leaders when they sought refuge from the bandits. He had never forgotten it—it felt terrible that the population had nearly been halved and the entire village in ruins.

Tomas was another story—Claude had actually been fond of him back then, asking him all about the history of the monastery and requesting book recommendations. He’d actually begun to think of him as a friend. Tomas had been open and shared knowledge even if it put the church in a less than favorable light—Claude now wondered which of it was true and which had been him planting false ideas.

He suddenly felt like taking a long and thorough bath, and not because of the dirt from the fight.

“Snooping, huh?” 

Claude yelped, whirling around to find Sylvain leaning against the broken doorframe. 

“Sylvain.”

“Oh, don’t mind me. Please, continue.”

“I just wanted to see if Toma—Solon left anything behind. Some clues, maybe.” Claude ran a hand through his hair, grimacing at the amount of soot and grime that came off. “We have no idea how he turned those villagers into. . .that.”

“Magic?” Sylvain guessed, stepping in and looking around. 

“No, he was at the academy, remember? Talk of the illness here came before he left. Although—maybe he already had someone here, doing the work.” Claude walked over to the remains of a kitchen table and picked up a half broken glass. “Or maybe he poisoned the water supply, somehow. You can slow down the reaction time for some poisons by diluting it and adding extract from Morfis plum leaves. Though it wouldn’t account for why only some of the villagers were turned. . .I should talk to some of the surviving ones later.”

Sylvain had paused in his inspection of a dirty teddy bear, sitting on his heels on the ground. He was frowning. 

Claude busied himself looking for some water container in the house to collect samples. “Anyhow—another thing we should consider is that he was at the academy this whole time. Why wait? He had every opportunity to—damn. I forgot about Flayn. Do you think they used her blood for this?”

“I have no idea about Flayn, but the fact that this is the second traitor we’ve had in the span of three months. . .” Sylvain gripped the stuffed animal tight, standing up. “We’ve gotta get better security. Too many people have been hurt.”

“Agreed.”

“And usually, I’m not one to put much stock in gossip, but. . .” Sylvain sighed. “Don’t you think there’s something weird about that Monica girl?”

“I haven’t really had the opportunity to talk to her,” Claude admitted. “She's always hanging around Edelgard. What about her?”

“Okay, so I tried to hit on her—stop smirking like that—and I am so glad _that_ didn’t pan out because I think she’s crazy.” Sylvain took in a deep breath. He shuddered. “Like, flat out crazy. My gut’s telling me she’s bad news.”

“What did she say to you?” Claude was almost hesitant to ask.

He never got the answer anyway, since Hilda chose that moment to appear in the doorway, panting.

“Claude! There you are.” She straightened, her face grim. “The Flame Emperor just showed up, you missed everything.”

-

“Hey, congratulations!” Leonie nodded at Claude as he stepped out of the classroom. “My turn?”

“Yeah, good luck.” Not that she needed it—Claude was completely sure she’d pass the paladin exam. She patted him on one of the shoulder pieces that jutted out from his new uniform as she passed.

“Aw, Claude!” Hilda squealed, running up to him. Her armor clanged noisily, and it was a testament to her hidden strength how easily she could move around. “You look so cute in that outfit!”

“Calm down,” Claude said, frowning, “I still have no idea why Teach would want me to be an assassin.”

“Given your schemes and inclination to general mayhem,” Lorenz sniffed, picking at the fabric of his new warlock uniform, “The shadows are a rather fitting place for you.”

“Well,” Sylvain interjected, leaning up against the wall between Ignatz and Marianne, waiting for his turn. He smiled and tilted his head, eyes tracing Claude’s form from head to toe. “Hilda’s right. You kind of look like a cute little bumblebee.”

Ignatz snapped his fingers, suddenly. “That’s it! I was thinking of what the colors reminded me of.”

“Between you and Ignatz, we’ll have the _cutest_ assassins at Garreg Mach!” Hilda clapped Ignatz lightly on the shoulder. Ignatz laughed nervously, eyeing the heavy armor she wore. 

“Don’t hold your breath, I haven’t passed the exam,” he muttered.

“Oh, _please_ , you’ve got that in the bag. You could stand to have a little more confidence, you know.”

“Hilda as our first line of defense, and our house leader as an assassin,” Sylvain laughed, looking delighted. “This has got to be the most unconventional house, and I gotta say it’s a nice change of pace.”

“That’s the Golden Deer for you,” Claude quipped, smiling.

-

“So,” Claude had started, casually, whilst he and Teach were discussing battle preparations for a practice battle with the Knights. “I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

Teach glanced at him briefly, silently giving him his cue to continue.

“Why assassin, all of a sudden?” Claude’s words tumbled out gracelessly, less planned and calculated than he’d like it to be. “You’ve only recently started sword training with me—is it because of the poison thing? It really is just a hobby, and I can’t brew anything deadly. Unless you want me to give a couple of bandits severe stomach trouble and cramps, I can’t help you there. Did you think it would suit me because of the whole outsider thing?”

Byleth paused in their writing, opening their mouth. They closed it, a frown twitching on their mouth. 

“The outfit was cute and you seem to like the flipping.” They admitted.

-

(Days later, as Claude tossed a knife with deadly accuracy and backflipped out of the way of a swordsman trying to run him through, he admitted to himself that it was quite fun.)

-

“Claude.”

“Ah, Hilda—“

Claude yelped as his back hit stone. “Gods! What the—“

“What were you _thinking_?” Hilda’s hands clamped firmly and quite painfully on his shoulders, shaking him. “Hounding poor Marianne like that!”

“Oh, are you talking about yesterday?” Claude hesitantly tapped at one of her wrists, feeling uncomfortable at the proximity. “Can you maybe step back a little?”

“Not until you explain yourself.” For once, Hilda seemed to have crossed the line between irritated and angry. “I caught her running from the dining hall yesterday. The only reason I waited a day was because I spent it sampling pastries with her to cheer her up a bit. You messed up, Claude.”

“I just wanted to—ow, _quit it_ —I just wanted to find out a little more about her and why she’s so upset all the time. You do know she’s hiding something, right?”

“Uh, yeah, duh— _everyone’s hiding something, you dummy_!” Hilda shook him again for emphasis. Claude was not wrong when he theorized that she could probably toss him around like a rag doll. In better circumstances he’d probably try to make a flirtatious comment about it. “That doesn’t make it your business!”

“I—“

“Asking her straight up where she really comes from and what she’s hiding—that’s rich, coming from Mr. ‘I’ll-bare-my-secrets-if-you-bare-me-yours’,” Hilda said in a fake deep voice that was supposed to be an imitation of Claude’s. It was terrible. Claude’s voice wasn’t even that deep. “It doesn’t matter if she keeps saying you weren’t being insensitive, Marianne’s just _way_ too nice for her own good. You _were_ being insensitive, jeez.”

She let go, stepping back and crossing her arms. Claude rubbed his shoulder, wincing. 

“I just. . .” Claude looked down, frowning as her words sunk in. “I thought we were similar, and I tried to—I don’t know, be friends or something. I guess. . .?”

“You and _Marianne_? Similar?”

 _Well, she’s the victim of a lot of rumors and prejudice as well, and we both seem to carry burdens we never asked for_ , Claude didn’t say. 

“Well, anyhow,” Hilda continued, shaking her head in disbelief, “Claude. I thought you were the suave guy. What in the world made you think forcing someone to exchange secrets with you would be a good start to a friendship?”

It was how he always thought of it—a secret for a secret. Claude would feel comfortable sharing as long as he and whoever he was talking to were on equal ground, that he wasn’t needlessly making himself vulnerable and revealing too much. 

And—honestly, maybe he’d gotten a little too excited by the possibility of discussing their similar problems. He’d kept all that stuff in his head for so long, and seeing the way she’d isolate herself and avoid everyone else admittedly reminded him of his younger self a bit. He’d wanted to maybe try and help her, as well as find out what it was, since it seemed to tie into her lineage. 

“I guess I was in a mood,” he shrugged, “You’re right. I was insensitive. I should go and apologize.”

 _For real this time,_ he thought. He _was_ aware he’d used his initial apology to prod at her further and get her talking, and he felt guilty—he hadn’t thought to put himself in her shoes and think about how aggressive he had come off, from her view.

“You better,” Hilda smiled, although Claude could see the threat underneath just fine. “That one’s grown on me, I gotta say. She’s a sweetheart.”

-

Claude stifled a yawn, rereading the same paragraph for what must’ve been the millionth time. He _could_ sleep, probably, but everytime he was near to doing so his consciousness would nag at him to _keep working you can’t stop now_ , so he’d rub his eyes and try to tackle the section again.

In the far distance, he could hear loud and quick footsteps, like someone was running down the hall. Curiously, they came to a stop right outside his door. They paced for about a minute, and Claude felt lazy enough that he briefly considered picking up a book at random and chucking it at the door in a silent command for whoever it was to get a move on.

Finally, they knocked. Claude called for them to come in.

“Hey, have I said you look really great today, and I really need you to do this for me— _yeesh_ would you look at this mess!” Sylvain yelped as he tripped over the pile of books by the door.

Claude blinked blearily at Sylvain. “Were you the one making a ruckus outside?”

“Yeah, ‘cause, uh, see, there’s this girl.”

“You broke up with her and now you need a place to hide,” Claude yawned, “As long as you don’t touch anything on my desk, fine. If you do I will kick you out.”

“Am I really that predictable? You don’t really look like you’re in a state to kick anyone out, actually.”

Claude sighed deeply and dropped the book on his face, struggling to keep his eyes open. “I think I’ve been awake for two days. I’m not in the mood.”

“Is it because of the bed? How do you sleep on that?” Sylvain asked. Claude could hear the sounds of shuffling and books landing on top of each other by the foot of the bed. “Your room looks like a library with a bed. A disorganized library. You’re worse than Ashe. . .He actually fixes his books.”

Claude moved the book off his face, frowning at the other. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you out. Up.” Claude lifted his hips off the mattress as Sylvain pulled out books from under him. “Don’t you wake up sore and ache-y? This can’t be good for your back.”

“I don’t really notice. I can sleep anywhere. I napped in a tree the other day.”

“And yet you flip and shoot arrows upside down and in midair like nobody’s business. There. Everything looks better once you’ve stacked them like that.”

“What’s the point?”

“Isn’t it hard for you to work with the mess? Now scooch.”

“Not really,” Claude said, as Sylvain climbed onto the bed. “Now what are you doing?”

“What’s it look like? All that heavy lifting and running tired me out, I need a nap. And your bed is _huge_. Wait, did the future Duke Riegan have a bigger bed brought in? How luxurious.”

“Uh, no.” Claude blinked. “Aren’t all the beds like this?”

“. . .No?” Sylvain looked confused, looking around and patting the mattress. “Your bed’s about. . .twice as much bigger. And I know that the other Blue Lions had the same size bed as me, so—do the Deer just have bigger beds?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been inside anyone else’s room.”

“Never?” Sylvain’s eyebrows rose. “Huh.”

Claude hummed and tried to go back to his book, drawing his legs up to prop it up on his thighs. He’d never had someone else in his bed before, considering his rather friendless childhood, and—well, he never thought of inviting someone else inside before. He should probably be more wary of Sylvain, but he was sleepy. Sleepy Claude was a very different person from Awake Claude. 

“What’cha reading?” Sylvain mumbled, suddenly too close for comfort. His hair brushed Claude’s temple, and their shoulders were touching. Reflexively, Claude tensed, although something pleasant tingled at the points of contact.

“Some history book about the Ten Elites. But to be honest I’m pretty sure this is all fiction.”

Wariness aside, he couldn’t deny how nice it felt to have someone near enough to touch. Sylvain radiated heat like a damn fireplace, warming Claude’s skin by proximity alone. He found himself wondering what it would feel like to hug him, and stopped himself from trying to wiggle closer into the other’s side.

“Relax,” Sylvain said, softly. He clumsily grabbed at Claude’s book, closing it and setting it down somewhere. He threw an arm around Claude’s middle, turning on his side and shifting closer. Claude felt like liquid. “Just for an hour or something.”

“Okay,” Claude said, falling asleep almost immediately.

-

A day before the ball, Teach took them aside after class. 

“You are to wear your evening dress uniforms,” Teach squinted at a rather long scroll. “Seteth has written the rules down here, but all of them just go back to ‘don’t wear inappropriate clothes’ and ‘don’t do inappropriate things’. If you would like to learn about these in detail, consult the scroll.”

“Uh,” Sylvain held up a hand, “So is it ‘inappropriate’ to—“

“Consult the scroll.”

“I can’t read this,” Sylvain groaned, reluctantly holding onto the paper after Teach shoved it at him. He squinted. “What the hell is this handwriting? Is this still in our language?”

“Is it possible to not go?” Marianne asked, shoulders hunched in further than usual. 

“Well. . .Seteth said it was mandatory to show up for the first two rounds, and you’re the Heron Cup winner. They open the first round of dancing along with the house leaders. Sorry.” Teach shook their head.

“Hey, c’mon, Mari!” Hilda grabbed her arm and hugged it close to her. “It’ll be fun.”

“Yeah, we’d all be happy to have you there, Marianne!” Ignatz piped up. 

“And there’ll be good food too, you can’t miss out on that!” Raphael added. 

“Uh. . .well. . .” Marianne looked downwards.

“Hey, you did amazing during the dance contest,” Leonie clapped her on the shoulder. “Nothing to worry about.”

“. . .Okay,” Marianne reddened, shrugging off Leonie’s hand. Leonie looked unfazed, her face lighting up. 

“We’re gonna have tons of fun!” Hilda squealed, “I’ve been looking forward to this. Let’s show them that the Deer know how to party! Uh, the Deer and one Lion.”

“Technically Sylvain _is_ a deer, since he’s in the Golden Deer class,” Lysithea pointed out. 

“I don’t know, it’s just weird,” said Hilda. “Sylvain and Lion are just synonymous in my head.”

“Is it because I’m brave and daring?” Sylvain smiled flirtatiously. 

“Oh, don’t be daft,” Hilda smiled back, sweetly. “It’s because deer are graceful and elegant, and that is. . .not you.”

“Ow,” Sylvain grinned. “Cold. I love it.”

“I don’t know about graceful and elegant, you guys. . .” Raphael scratched the back of his neck. 

“You are not without potential,” Lorenz sighed. “You are a Deer, therefore you have the capability. If you find yourself at a loss, I will be more than happy to show you. As an esteemed nobleman of House Gloucester—“

“Oh goddess, you were doing so well until that last part,” Leonie interjected.

Claude listened to them banter and laugh amongst themselves, feeling a sudden rush of warmth and a sense of camaraderie.

There was something beautiful about the children of distrustful and hateful old men, of noblemen and commoners, talk like there was nothing special to it at all. It made a juvenile dream such as Claude’s seem plausible—that they could be more than what people thought of them, that in time bloodlines and lineages wouldn’t matter at all. 

Maybe this moment in time meant little, in the grand scheme of things, but Claude felt like they were making history.

“Hey,” he spoke up, drawing everyone’s eyes over to him. “I have an idea. It may sound impulsive, a little irresponsible, almost certainly impossible. . .”

-

The violins sung as Claude stepped into the dressed up reception hall. He had to hand it to whoever made the effort; it looked beautiful. The hall was awash in golden light, the tables cleared out, new drapery hung across the walls. 

It was a shame that he had a ball of apprehension sitting in his stomach. It was a silly thought, but Claude had never felt welcome at events like these—the reception ball his own grandfather had thrown to formally declare him a legitimate heir to House Riegan had been more of an avenue for investigation and judgement than a party. Festivals and celebrations in Almyra hadn’t been any better, and so he half expected the music to wane and the weight of a dozen or so pairs of eyes to land once he walked through the doors. 

They didn’t, of course. But Claude liked to approach things with a healthy amount of caution.

“ _Claude_!” Hilda’s exaggeratedly sweet voice pulled him out of his thoughts. She hugged one of his arms close to her chest and smiled up at him. “Look at _you._ You clean up well. Glad to see you took my advice and wore the lip gloss!”

“Speak for yourself,” He grinned, slipping into a performance seamlessly. It was easier with Hilda—shows went more smoothly if you were playing off another actor. “Nice earrings.”

“Thanks, made ‘em myself!” She giggled, nodding over at Marianne, who hung back closer to the wall. She was rubbing her upper arm, ducking her head a little. “Marianne! Come say hi to Claude.”

Marianne startled and raised her hand in a jerky wave.

“Start her off, she’s said no to about three boys already and people are going to talk if the daughter of Margrave Edmund _and_ the Heron Cup winner sulks in a corner all night,” Hilda hissed through her smile. “I’ve been doing guard duty, but I can sense Lorenz about to make his grand move and he’ll scare the poor girl off and make it worse, so better you than him. Don’t try anything, I’m warning you.”

“I’m flattered, it’s an honor. A ringing endorsement.” Claude said, but he shrugged Hilda off in the direction of some other student who seemed to be rearing to dance with her. Hilda bounced off, calling out a quick “bye!” to Marianne. Marianne looked like she wanted to follow.

“Hey, you look lovely tonight, Marianne.” Claude held out a hand, bowing exaggeratedly. Silliness always lightened up Marianne. He pulled his voice up to sound more nasally in a cheap imitation of Lorenz. “Might I do you the honor of a dance, fair maiden?”

“I-I suppose.” He looked up. Marianne was smiling, slightly. 

“Relax, I’ll spin you around a little and pass you off to Raphael or Ignatz. Or perhaps Dimitri, he’s nice,” Claude whispered as he took her hand and guided her to the dance floor. He winked. “Just enough to get everyone off your back. Sound good?”

Marianne timidly placed her hands on his shoulders, nodding. “Um, yes, please. Thank you.”

“It’s nothing,” Claude said. He rummaged through his head for a moment for something he could share safely. “I’m not too fond of this stuffy noble dancing, either. If it were up to me I’d put more food on the buffet table, for one. And there’d be a bonfire!”

“Bonfire?”

“Yeah, back where I grew up, we’d have these festivals,” Claude spun her slowly enough so she wouldn’t startle. “We’d eat and sing the night away around a bonfire, and there was this thing where you’d jump over the bonfire. Supposedly, it warded off bad luck. . .”

Except for the time the kids he’d tried to play with tried to push him into the fire and laughed at him when he’d gotten scared. _Coward_ , they’d jeered. _Can’t take even a bit of fire on his princely clothes._

“That sounds nice,” Claude refocused. Marianne sounded like she was really trying. He felt his heart warm a little despite his troubled thoughts.

“Yeah, it was.” He fell silent after that, but made sure to pull his mouth up in a smile every time she looked up from the ground so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. It was probably better that way, anyway. He could definitely feel the familiar weight of eyes. 

Maybe pairing off the quiet, mysterious noble with the weirdest house leader in Garreg Mach for the first round of dancing wasn’t the best plan. 

“I-I’m sorry. I’m really bad at talking.”

“Don’t be, I’m fine with it.”

“Okay.” Marianne said, her voice practically a whisper. Claude strained his ears to hear. “It’s just. . .you seem uncomfortable? It may be best to stop now. . .”

“What? No. What makes you think that?”

“Um. Your smile, I suppose?” Marianne squeezed her eyes shut, her hand tightening over Claude’s shoulder. “Sorry! I don’t mean to offend. I have trouble with smiling, too.”

Claude blinked. “I’m not offended, not at all. What about my smile?”

“Your eyes, maybe?” She tried. “They don’t match, I guess.”

Oh. Maybe he’d overestimated his skill at deception.

“Ah,” Claude said. He frowned. “Yeah, I guess I haven’t practiced very well if it’s that obvious. . .”

Marianne seemed to perk up a little. “Sylvain said that I should try saying ‘cheese’, when I practice. I think it could help.”

“Sylvain?” Claude glanced briefly at a bright head of red hair on the other side of the dance floor. He kept tabs on everyone on the dance floor, he told himself—he was doing excellently. “. . .cheese?”

“Yes, we were talking the other day, after class.” Claude nodded, feeling lighter despite his stinging pride. This was the most he’d ever heard her speak. “He said he thinks a person’s smile determines someone’s value. He helped me practice.”

“Really?” Claude looked at Sylvain. It was too far to see, but he seemed to be dancing with Dorothea. He couldn’t see their expressions. “Huh. That’s—that’s really nice of him.”

“It makes me feel stronger, when I smile,” said Marianne. “Do—do you want to try?”

With the way Marianne was talking, he found that he didn’t really need to practice, since he could already feel one coming—but he decided to play along. 

“Yeah. Should I start with the cheese thing?” 

“Yes, I think that would be best.”

“Okay. Chee—hee-eese—” Claude’s voice stuttered on an unexpected laugh. “No, I’m sorry, it felt silly. Cheese?”

“Chee—eese,” Marianne dragged it out, her smile wide.

“Cheese.” Claude nodded, pretending like she’d said something profound. Marianne nodded back, timidly. They held each other’s stare for a couple of seconds, at most, before they started laughing. Hilda was right—forcing someone to exchange secrets with him would’ve felt less better and natural than something like this. 

The violins tapered off, ending the song. Everyone started to change partners, moving about on the dancefloor. 

Claude and Marianne bowed to each other. He’d let the small smile on his face stay as he straightened, and Marianne did the same. 

“Thank you.” She told him. 

“Nah, I’m supposed to be thanking you,” he said, calling Ignatz from his spot near Raphael at the buffet table by moving his eyes and subtly nodding at Marianne. Ignatz stood up straight, pushing his glasses up nervously, and started hurrying over. “I needed that. Really.”

“I’m. . .glad I could help.”

As he left Ignatz and Marianne to it, he muttered “cheese” lowly one last time as he passed, if only to see her smile before taking Ignatz’ offered hand.

He’d told himself to look around for Sylvain, to—he didn’t know, exactly. Thank him for bringing Marianne’s spirits up? Ask him how the dance was going for him so far? Maybe gauge if Sylvain had actually thought him fake and insincere this entire time because of the way he smiled?

Either way, it’d have to wait—Teach was lingering on the sidelines, standing away from the other students, who seemed to want to ask them for a dance but looked too intimidated. They were literally just standing there, looking around awkwardly. Claude had to do _something_ about it.

-

“Finally,” Claude breathed to himself, suppressing a shiver. He needed to buy a coat or cloak at the market soon. “Wait—damn.”

He frowned up at the dark silhouette of the cathedral ahead. He’d been so busy lost in his own head that he’d walked out the wrong end of the reception hall. It’d be a long way back to the dormitories. 

Or maybe. . .no one was going to be near the cathedral, at this time of night and on this night in particular. The view of the sky was way better from any one of the surrounding towers than from the miniscule window in his bedroom. 

Resolved, Claude blew hot air into his hands and rubbed them, walking down the silent bridge to head to the cathedral. He’d leave before he froze to death—he just needed the comfort of the stars tonight.

But once he made the turn away from the main entrance to the left side, he was nearly knocked off his feet by someone else turning the corner. 

“Oh, I’m sor—“

It was a girl, crying her eyes out. In the dim light, he couldn’t tell who it was. Claude, startled, held his hands up in an attempt to placate her. 

“Um,” said Claude. “Do you need—“

She was running away before he could finish. Claude sighed and held a hand up to his hair, looking back over his shoulder as he continued on. Maybe the cathedral wasn’t as unoccupied as he had thought. As he walked into the wider space near the side, he spotted a splash of dark red against the night sky over by the ledge.

Of course.

“You’ll never guess who I just ran into,” Claude said, dryly, as he approached.

“Was it Seteth?” Sylvain said, mock cheerfully. He was leaning over the edge, resting his forearms on the ledge. He didn’t look up. “It’s gotta be Seteth, for sure.”

“I don’t think Seteth’s going to be leaving the reception hall anytime soon, given Flayn’s newfound enthusiasm for dancing.”

“Okay, I’m not in the mood,” Sylvain’s voice went flat, all of a sudden. “What do you want?”

“Would you believe I came here to enjoy the view?” Claude said, mirroring Sylvain’s pose and looking up at the sky. His discomfort eased up as soon as he laid eyes on that familiar dark sheet riddled with white specks of light. The night sky was always the same, wherever he went. “I was expecting to be alone, actually.”

“Well, it’s good that you didn’t come a couple of minutes earlier, then.”

“Now, is the ladies’ man losing his touch?” Claude tore his eyes away from the stars. Sylvain still had his head bent low, frowning down into the indecipherable mass of greenery below them. “Shame.”

Sylvain made a ‘pffft’ sound, shaking his head with an annoyed look on his face. “What? Please. _I_ broke up with _her_. I just don’t like it when girls kick up a fuss. Break ups, you know.”

Claude didn’t, actually. “I wouldn’t know. I imagine it hurts to break off any kind of relationship.”

Sylvain scoffed, finally raising his head. He flicked his bangs out of his eyes. In this light, his hair was less bright and more dark maroon. “They’re never hurt that I break up with them, they’re hurt that they won’t have a chance at my money or my crest anymore.”

Claude blinked, his eyebrows raising at the venom in Sylvain’s low tone. He was even more surprised at the reason. 

“That’s really what you think?”

“What else would they be after?” asked Sylvain, incredulous. Claude narrowed his eyes, feeling something off about the way he spoke. It wasn’t his usual act. But it didn’t feel quite honest, either. 

“Plenty, it’s not like you’re lacking in personality,” Claude retorted. “Or looks.”

“You think I look good?”

“It’s just not logically _or_ statistically possible,” Claude shook his head, disbelievingly, “If every woman you dated was really after your crest then we’d have to have a serious talk with Seteth about the people they let live in Garreg Mach. That’s. . .just nonsense.”

“Ouch.”

“‘Ouch’ probably isn’t gonna cut it for that girl you sent crying home.”

“You sound like Felix.”

“He must be a pretty smart guy, then.”

“Yeah,” Sylvain agreed. “He’s incredibly rude about it, though.”

Claude bit back the ‘ _must be if he had to deal with you for years_ ’ on his tongue and sighed. 

“Crests aren’t everything, you know.”

“You. . .actually look like you mean that. Did you not grow up pressured over one?” Sylvain looked bewildered. “Aren’t you the Riegan heir?”

Claude had talked himself into a corner. 

“I didn’t grow up like most.” He said. “The Riegan household only accepted me because I turned out to have a crest, which I had no idea about before. I only found out about them and the church last year.”

“Must be nice to grow up like that.”

Claude frowned at him. “I had other problems. Not necessarily worse, I guess, but. . .different problems.”

The words were on the tip of his tongue and stuck in his throat at the same time, the strange urge to share paired with an uncomfortable and tired feeling. Claude grimaced.

“So, yeah, I don’t care much for crests or the complexities of the noble system or any of that nonsense.”

Sylvain studied his face for so long that Claude was starting to shift uncomfortably. 

Then he smiled, although it looked slightly intrigued. “You know, you must’ve come from somewhere really sheltered if you grew up not even knowing about the church or crests. Where’d you say you were from, again?”

“Ah, that’s a story for another time.” Claude smiled wryly, deflecting. “I’ve talked too much about myself, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” said Sylvain, his voice taking on that flirty quality it did when he talked to the girls in town. “I could listen to you talk all night.”

“Alright, loverboy, time to get you back to the party.” Claude sighed. “C’mon.”

“Just me? What about you?”

“Think I’ll head back,” Claude shrugged, stretching and interlocking his fingers behind his neck. The fabric of his uniform protested. “I’m done for the night.”

“Oh.” A pause. “You haven’t danced enough, though. Only with Marianne, the professor, and Hilda.” 

“You make a habit of keeping tabs on me?” Claude smirked, although his heart kicked up suddenly— _against his will_. “That’s sweet.”

Sylvain shrugged. “You were near my spot on the dance floor.”

Lie. Sylvain had been on the opposite side of the dance floor, nearly all the way to the other end of the hall. Claude let it slide. Saying so would only reveal that Claude himself had been keeping an eye out, too. 

“I’m not that well-versed in Fódlan noble dances, and to be honest they’re kind of stuffy. And I find it stuffy in there too, if you would believe it. I prefer the kind of crowd you’d meet at a feast, not a ball.”

“Would you agree to a dance here, then?”

“. . .Are you offering?” 

“Why do you look so surprised?” Sylvain laughed. “Maybe I’m looking for someone to cheer me up and keep me company after having my poor heart break tonight.”

He straightened his posture and extended his hand, indicating that he was offering to lead. 

“I’d say _you_ weren’t the one who got their heart broken,” Claude commented, “But. . .okay. If you want.”

“Believe me, I do,” Sylvain smiled winningly as Claude placed his hand in his. 

“If you say so,” Claude said airily, doing his best to keep his composure as Sylvain fitted his palm over Claude’s waist. Calm and collected, that was him. Calm and collected, even if Sylvain’s freakishly large hands were on him _yet again_ , warm and rough, after the pains he’d gone through to avoid this very situation after the whole lance training thing. 

He sort of wanted to ask _why me? why here?_ but thought it’d sound too much like he was fishing for compliments. 

“Just follow my lead,” Sylvain mumbled, looking at their hands. He started moving, pulling Claude along. “Your hands are smaller. You and Felix should compare. I think he has way bonier fingers, though. Yours are soft.”

He squeezed Claude’s hand gently, sending pleasant tingles where his fingers brushed Claude’s skin. Claude started counting to ten in his head. 

“Or maybe yours are just large,” Claude replied. “If you’re looking for tiny hands, Lysithea’s right there.”

“She’s a kid, of course she’s got the tiniest hands.”

“Oh, I would love to see her react to that,” Claude cleared his throat. “‘Your lack of awareness _astounds_ me. If you’re going to treat me like a child, then I suggest you leave me be!’”

“What? It’s true!” Sylvain snickered.

“Doesn’t mean she likes to hear it. I like to check on her before bed and she always gives me so much shit for it.”

“She needs that, she’s always working. Kiddo needs to let loose and have a little fun.”

Claude shook his head, matching Sylvain’s grin. 

“No, seriously,” Sylvain turned them in a circle, movements casual and relaxed despite the lack of music. “Wanna annoy her into it sometime? Two against one, we’ll get her out in the sun and shopping or something, make a day out of it.”

“It’s not a bad idea. She likes sweets, and Hilda says someone else took over the bakery in town recently. Their pastries are to die for, I hear.”

“It’s settled, then.” Sylvain nodded firmly. “It’ll be fun.”

Claude opened his mouth to respond, but then suddenly he was tipped backwards, the world was spinning overhead and he let out the most undignified “ _BAH_!” as he wrapped an arm around Sylvain’s neck in panic. 

Sylvain was laughing, leaning over him. He had an arm wrapped around Claude’s back, holding him up. “How’s this for stuffy noble dancing?”

“Not—not bad,” Claude managed, “B+.”

“ _B+?!_ ”

“I’m docking points for scaring the damn shit out of me.”

“Aw, you know I’ll always catch you.” Sylvain winked. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Actually, I’ve got everything to worry about—I don’t want a lion chasing after my pretty hide,” Claude smiled although it felt brittle, his heart was still pounding from the surprise. 

Sylvain continued to hold him in a dip, impressively without any tremors in his arm. Claude shifted uncomfortably, feeling an urge to avert his eyes from Sylvain’s big brown ones. He felt like something was about to happen, and he wasn’t all that ready.

“You gonna let me up anytime soon?”

“Whoops, sorry.” Sylvain eased him back up. 

“Cool! Never do that again.”

Sylvain made as if to sweep him off his feet again then laughed when Claude batted him away. 

“Hey, I’m just giving you your just desserts,” Sylvain raised his hands, palms up in a ‘what-can-you-do’ gesture. “Playing around to get a reaction. That’s what you like to do, isn’t it?”

“Huh?” 

“You do it all the time—you flirt to get a reaction out of me, out of Dimitri and Edelgard, out of the professor. In my case, you stop when I’m expecting you to flirt back.” Sylvain tilted his head, a sharp smile stretching his mouth. “All of this is just a big game for you, and everyone else are chess pieces. Right?”

He laughed before Claude could answer, the previous expression melting away. 

“Well, that reaction was certainly worth it,” he said, winking. “My favorite’s still when I dipped you, though.”

Well, Claude thought, that was that. Sylvain had him cornered and it was only going to be downhill from there—time to pack up and go while they were still on a high. 

-

Claude had expected Sylvain to branch off near the reception hall and find someone else to spend the rest of the night with, but he had continued walking with him all the way to the dormitories. 

“Thanks for the dance,” Claude called, stepping to the side to enter his room.

“Hey, wait.”

Claude turned with a questioning hum, pausing under the archway. Sylvain looked unsure. 

“Yeah?” Claude prompted.

Instead of answering, Sylvain moved forward, stepping right back into Claude’s personal space. 

In this light, Claude was reminded of how tall Sylvain was. His shoulders were broad enough that they cast a shadow over most of Claude's form. He couldn’t say that he disliked it all that much—Sylvain looked big and warm and Claude was kind of aching to be enveloped.

“You know,” said Sylvain, suddenly, “you show your dimples when you smile all wide.”

Claude didn’t know what to say to that, so he kept quiet, blinking up at him with an unreadable look on his face.

Sylvain leaned in, stopping when Claude placed a hand on his chest. But he didn’t push him away or pull him in, so Sylvain must have taken it as permission to continue. 

Claude was not ready. His first impression of a kiss was that it was incredibly soft. Or maybe it was just Sylvain. It didn’t feel like the world was ending, and Sylvain didn’t shove his tongue down his throat and wrestled him for dominance like he’d read in the books his mother would hide in her pillowcase.

Claude didn’t quite know what to do with his mouth, but Sylvain led like he did when he danced, so he leaned back against the wall and let himself be kissed. Sylvain hummed, the warm vibrations feeling pleasant, and he placed one cool hand on Claude’s burning jaw and the other in his hair, toying with the braid. If he kissed all the village girls like this, then Claude could get why they continued to fool around with him despite his reputation. 

All the blood was rushing up to his face so fast that he felt kind of dizzy. He tried to steady himself and grabbed onto Sylvain’s hip with a hand.

It lasted all of five seconds or five hours for all Claude could’ve known. 

He pulled back before he could float too high, feeling some embarrassment flare at the quiet _snick_ sound their mouths made as the separated. Sylvain sighed, opening his eyes. 

In the face of it, Claude had no idea what to say. Sylvain held his stare, brown eyes steady and his hair a warm orange-yellow in the firelight. His lips were smeared with a light streak of glittering gold, and it made Claude’s chest twist viciously with something he didn’t want to name.

“Good night,” Sylvain whispered, finally.

“Good night.” Neither of them drew attention to how Claude’s hand twitched when Sylvain leaned away.

-

They never talked about it, afterwards. Claude blamed the ache on the bruises his heart must have gotten from thrashing so hard against his ribcage that night.

-

Then the whole thing with the chapel happened, Sylvain had been right about Monica, and Jeralt died along with five Black Eagle students and suddenly it was like months of work had unraveled and sent Byleth right back to the start, with blank faces and flat voices. 

(Claude would never forget the sight of it, Teach cradling their father’s head gently—tears cascading down their cheeks and their chest hitching spastically. He could feel the emotion radiating off them like heat from a fireplace.

But their face was terribly blank.

It didn’t look like they were trying to repress it. It looked like they were trying desperately to feel but their face wouldn’t let them. It sent chills down Claude’s spine.)

They hadn’t even protested when Claude had boldly asked to borrow Jeralt’s old diary, acting on an impulse and a sense of urgency to find out whatever the church was hiding before it was too late and more people died.

It was undeniable, now—the fact that three people were specifically planted undercover at the monastery in less than a year, that they’d been after Flayn’s blood and managed to use it to turn people into something less human, the shifty way Seteth and Rhea acted. 

There was something between them and whoever Solon and Monica and Jeritza were working for, and Claude hated not knowing.

-

But for all accounts and purposes, in the end, Claude was also still just an eighteen-year-old boy.

Whenever there was a lull while researching, or while doing mundane chores like washing the dishes and watering the plants—Claude couldn’t help but wander back to Sylvain and the ball. He turned it over in his head again and again, like a puzzle. 

He could be charming, sure, and Claude didn’t think himself undesirable but that couldn’t have been the reason Sylvain did _that_. He was back to chasing after women as usual as far as Claude knew, anyway. There had to be something deeper to it—something between the lines. There always was.

So he kept one eye on Sylvain even as he worked on the church and Byleth, carefully noting whatever he’d find up in his head to examine for those nights when he’d lay awake and remember. 

(In the end, that kiss had been the reason Claude figured out Sylvain, quiet and unnoticed in the moons between the ball and the beginning of the war. 

Claude was a person who had feelings and whatnot, so it had inevitably hurt to conclude that he must have been but one instrument in the orchestra to Sylvain’s cycle of self-destruction and justification, but what could he do? 

It was probably better to think of it that way, anyhow. He probably would’ve had a harder time figuring out how to go about it if Sylvain really did—

Claude had no room for things like that, so he left it there.)

-

And everyone showed their uglier side, eventually. Claude had learned this lesson early on, but it still hurt whenever he’d have to relearn it.

“Cyril works way too hard,” he commented, watching the young boy dash out of the classroom after Byleth had personally oversaw his authority training, calling out something about stable work. “He wouldn’t listen to me, but I bet he would if Rhea told him.”

This one wasn’t a mystery, but something he’d like to work on, nonetheless. Rhea didn’t seem evil, but she could be unsettlingly cruel and rooted in her ways—Claude worried for Cyril, having read the Seiros tenets about engaging with foreign countries. For now, he gave Rhea the benefit of the doubt. It wasn't as if she had written the tenets herself, and maybe Cyril was an example that her decisions didn't entirely depend on the Church's rules.

“He’s a good kid,” Hilda said, lightly, stretching. “Not like any of those brutish Almyrans. So violent!”

“That’s really what you think?” asked Claude.

“Uh, yeah? Why, has Cyril done something?”

“No, I meant the Almyrans.”

“Oh. Well, yeah, sure. I grew up hearing to _all kinds_ of stories, living in Goneril. From the people and some of the soldiers, anyway, since my father and brother never talked about what they were like in battle. They kept the servants from me all my life, so I haven’t really seen one up close—well, except for Cyril.”

Something felt extremely uncomfortable about this situation. Claude bit at the inside of his cheek, thinking. 

He'd met Holst Goneril and his father before, and the two of them were among the few that had greeted him kindly, relatively speaking. Holst in particular was warm and pleasant company. He wondered how drastically their demeanor towards him would change, if they knew he were Almyran.

It was safe to assume majority of the people he knew, particularly Leicester nobles, were bound to revise their opinion of him if they knew he wasn't really from around here. One of the signs were how they treated people like Cyril, and now Hilda was just one of those who fit the bill.

“Claude. Hey, Claude? _Hello_ _oo._ ” Hilda snapped her fingers in front of his face. “You’ve gone quiet.”

“Sorry, I was thinking.” Claude halfheartedly pulled his lips up into a smile, although suddenly he couldn’t look Hilda in the eye.

“Always so lost in that big head of yours,” Hilda teased. 

“Ah, you know that the curse of having such a huge mind means that it’s much easier to get lost in.” Claude leaned back, focusing on Hilda’s nose to appear like he was making eye contact. “Anyhow. C’mon, time to get back to work.”

“ _Aw_ , I was hoping to put it off just a little bit longer.”

-

Despite everything, there was just another layer to it whenever Hilda asked him to share more of his ‘weird childhood stories’. 

It wasn’t like Claude was about to cut ties—he wouldn’t do that unless it was absolutely necessary—but it just wasn’t the same anymore. He felt more like an outsider than ever. 

-

Sylvain stopped seeking him out specifically, still keeping up their act in class but spending nearly all of his time between his childhood friends and women. Maybe part of it was that Claude stopped indulging him. Maybe it was solid proof of how Claude was right about why he chased after those women , almost desperately, and dropped them as soon as he got them. Maybe Claude was proving Sylvain right, withdrawing as soon as he got burned.

Claude didn’t spend much on it, preferring to throw himself into his work and focus on the bigger picture.

(He didn’t want to make a habit out of lying to himself, since all you could ever really rely on was yourself. But sometimes, he thought, at night when he was at his loneliest—it was necessary.)

-

Claude hated him. 

The bastard had lured him in too deep, turning his own game around on him—making him overthink and overanalyze his way into—

Claude didn’t want to think about it.

He was supposed to be breaking dishes and tripping over piles of books lost in thought about schemes and the plausibility of cutting down the mountain ranges between Almyra and Fódlan with the Sword of the Creator, not _Sylvain_ and _stupid big brown philandering puppy dog eyes._

-

Then the Flame Emperor’s mask came off, and along with it everyone else’s. 

The play fell apart violently and unexpectedly, much like a hand sweeping over the board and knocking all of Claude’s pieces off, skittering all over the floor.

-

“So, just to put things in perspective,” said Claude. “Edelgard—who is now _Emperor_ Edelgard—and Hubert have been secretly planning a hostile takeover. They had a hand in all the stuff in the past few months—Flayn, Remire, maybe even Lonato and the Rite if you think about it. Prince Dimitri has holed himself up in the cathedral muttering about beheading Edelgard and, I don’t know, ghosts or something, and the Deer is the only class with a relatively functional house leader right now. 

“Between you, me, the knights, and whoever is capable from a selection of students who are mostly panicking, we have two weeks to prepare a defense against an offense Edelgard has been planning, with the advantage of having observed all of us and the monastery, for _moons_.”

Byleth nodded.

“Okay. So.” Claude inhaled. “That’s neat.”

-

Claude didn’t outwardly get angry all that often, preferring to distance himself from any kind of deep emotion. It was easier to think with a clearer head and pander to people’s interests for his benefit when he had a healthy degree of caution. Emotion was the instigator of impatience and recklessness, and Claude was playing a long con.

That being said—he was incredibly stressed beyond his limit right now and Sylvain was being an absolute ass.

“It’s the lack of sleep,” Hilda muttered as they eyed the clumsy way he gripped his lance. Teach was trying to comfort him to get him to try again. “He’s been going out night after night, all the town girls are talking about watching out for the young Gautier heir like he’s the Death Knight prowling the streets.”

Claude gritted his teeth, forcing a smile. Hilda gave him a pitying smile in return and Claude decided to pretend he didn’t see it. “I’ll figure something out. Anyhow, get back to training.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Hilda rolled her eyes, but hefted the axe up and walked over to a training dummy.

Claude spared one last glance at Sylvain, who looked more disheveled than usual, and sighed.

-

It was about two days later that Claude ‘figured it out’, spotting Sylvain strutting down the dimly lit hall. Claude had just been kicked out of the library, skulking behind Alois who spent forever talking about how sleep was important, especially before a big battle, and that ‘we really should’ve _checked out_ getting a new librarian, but we’ve just been completely _booked_!’

Claude liked to think that he was patient, but in that moment he thought he might’ve made a grab for Alois’ throat if he cracked another bad library pun.

“Where are you going?”

“What do you think? I’m going to go see if any lovely maidens in town need my company—“

Sometimes you just had to wing it, Claude decided, with maybe just a touch of sleep-deprived deliriousness.

He grabbed Sylvain by the wrist and forcibly hauled him into his room.

“Hey!”

“You’re not going out tonight.”

“Aw, you jealous, gorgeous?”

“No.” _I’m worried,_ he didn’t say. Claude pushed and Sylvain gracelessly fell on the bed.

“Kinky, I’m totally under your command.”

Claude wasn’t in the mood for games, so he took a page out of his mother’s book and ignored it. He lit the incense burner in the corner, thankful that Teach had recently gifted him with spices from the merchant in town, then the candles.

“How long has it been since you slept?”

“Who needs it? You know how it is. Too many girls, so little time.”

Sylvain truly was a test of patience.

“How long has it been since you slept?” Claude repeated tonelessly, pulling out a drawer and feeling blindly through vials and bundles of dried herbs. 

“. . .Um, maybe—a couple of days, I guess.” 

Claude found what he was looking for and turned around.

“I’m not going to lecture you,” Claude said. “I’m not Dimitri and I’m not Ingrid. I’m not Felix, either.”

The firelight barely reached Sylvain, casting most of his form in darkness. Claude could only pick out the slope of his nose and the swell of his cheek catching the light.

“I do have a theory, though. Would you care to listen?”

“Figured me out, have you?” Claude could hear the bitter smile in Sylvain’s voice. “Let’s hear it.”

“You know exactly what you’re doing.” Claude didn’t look up from his work. “I used to think you enjoyed doing this. I was wrong, wasn’t I? All of this is some sort of. . .self-punishment. I don’t know the exact details, but I do know you had it rough as a kid.”

“Not really. I mean, Miklan had it much worse.”

“And if we were to rank our pasts, does that mean that Raphael isn’t allowed to suffer because he lost his parents and Dimitri lost his entire family?” Claude looked up and cursed himself for doing this at this time of night—he couldn’t see Sylvain’s face. He had to, quite literally, play it by ear. “But as I’ve said, you already know this. You know a lot more than you let on. But it’s not enough to break the cycle, is it? You chase all these women, convinced that they’re only after you as a crest, and you’re satisfied in proving yourself as worthless when eventually, you hurt them and they leave. 

“It doesn’t matter what they want, you’re happy to keep doing it and take the rare confirmations as justification that ‘yeah, they all want me for my Crest and money’. You know it’s wrong, but you deserve it—you’re _making_ yourself deserve it—so you keep at it and wait for everything to inevitably fall apart because, hey, you’ve got it coming, right?”

Sylvain had stilled, taking in a sharp breath of air. Claude waited patiently, turning the vial of leaf extract in his hand over and over.

“Congratulations,” he said, finally. “Do you want a prize, golden boy? Tell me what you want. More secrets? Since you’re so obsessed with them.”

Claude shook his head, “I’m not looking for anything.”

“Well, that’s a big lie,” Sylvain said. “C’mon, you gotta have something after all that hard work. Oh, _wait_ , don’t tell me. This is why you’ve brought me to your room, isn’t it? That’s what you want?”

“Not really.”

“Lie number two! You’re on a roll tonight.” Sylvain smiled. “A fellow liar knows a lie when he hears one, you know. I’ll give you credit, you’re better at it than others. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, though—I know I’m handsome. I haven’t really done it with a guy but there’s a first for everything, right?”

“I’m not going to sleep with you, Sylvain.” 

Claude finished mixing the ingredients and poured it out into a teacup. 

“Sleep-inducing herb extracts,” said Claude. “Don’t worry, they’re dreamless. And I put a little bergamot in it.”

“The lengths you go to get me in your bed. You don’t need to do all this, you just need to ask.”

Claude ignored him. “It should knock you out for a few hours, at least. Take off your shoes before you lie down.”

“You aren’t coming?” Sylvain asked when Claude picked up the books on the bed and strode back to his desk, pulling out the chair.

“Nope. I have work to do.” Claude dropped the books onto the desk, pulled out some papers to draw up the battle formations he was thinking of bringing to Teach. “Go to sleep.”

“Why?”

“Why what? Why sleep?”

“Why are you doing this?” Sylvain was still holding the cup. The teacup looked small and kind of ridiculous clasped between both his hands. “You know I’m a good-for-nothing, right?”

“No, actually, I don’t. That’s you. _I,_ ” Claude exhaled, pulling out a new inkwell and placing it on the desk, “—would disagree. Your behavior towards women is. . .terrible, to say the least, and—yeah. You need to fix that. But you’re not good for nothing. I. . .”

For all the time Claude had spent thinking about him, now he hadn’t a clue what to say. It was more of a feeling, and ‘ _you’re Sylvain_ ’ probably wasn’t going to cut it—but that was it. He was just in a category of his own and despite everything Claude _cared_. Or maybe it was because of everything. He didn’t know. Feelings were more complicated than tactics.

But even starting to just think those things made him feel like he’d swallowed a stone. It made him feel cold and exposed, and he wasn’t about to give Sylvain or anyone an opening. And in hindsight—what would Claude’s opinions mean, anyway? Obviously Sylvain’s problem wasn’t about how everyone thought about him. It was how he thought about himself. He didn’t need to know whatever pretty words Claude thought up in his head in his spare time.

“You’re a person,” he said, finally. He stared at the blank papers in front of him. “You don’t have to be good for anything.”

It felt lacking, somehow. And hilariously hypocritical, coming from him. Maybe he and Sylvain weren’t all that different, after all.

“If I. . “ said Sylvain, “If I—I wouldn’t even know where to—“

He stopped, abruptly. 

_Finish it_ , Claude wanted to say. _Tell me_.

Sylvain sighed. “. . .Never mind.”

Claude heard him gulp the potion down, and set the cup down somewhere with a clink. The thud of boots hitting the floor, the rustle of his blankets. 

The tension hung in the air, Claude sitting still at his desk and staring at his textbooks. Sylvain had gone so quiet that Claude couldn’t even hear him breathing. Claude considered trying to bid him a good night, but his mouth seemed to be sealed shut out of—what? Apprehension? Stubbornness? Simply not knowing what to say?

Claude rescinded his previous assessment—the tension didn’t hang in the air, it _was_ the air. Everything seemed to hold still, like all the air in the room had suddenly decided to freeze and hold everyone and everything in place like a hand closing around a throat.

He thought he heard the beginning of something that sounded like “Cla—“ but it tapered off, unsure. For once, Claude didn’t push. 

Later, when the concoction eventually lulled Sylvain to sleep, his breathing evening out—Claude picked up a quill and started writing. 

He hated that Sylvain’s presence behind him both bothered and comforted him as he planned scheme after scheme, trying to find something that could conceivably turn the tides.

-

Sylvain mellowed out in the next few days. He and Claude had seemed to stay in a line between comfortable and apprehensive.

He made a habit out of sleeping in Claude’s room; Claude always kept a vial of sleeping draught on the table in a silent offer. More often than not it was left untouched.

“Got room in that huge bed of yours?” He’d said tiredly, the night after Claude had dragged him in and made him sleep. “I can’t sleep.”

“I can brew you something to help with that.”

“No need,” Sylvain shrugged his uniform jacket off, and toed off his boots. He hesitated. “His Highness talks a lot. It sinks through the walls.”

Oh, Claude had thought. That was probably part of the reason Sylvain had spiralled so quickly in the first place, in hindsight. Claude himself had found it hard to maintain a nonchalant attitude when he ran into Dimitri; the prince’s deranged mutterings about hanging Edelgard’s decapitated head on the gates of her home city and appeasing his ghosts had greatly unnerved him. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to hear those kinds of things seeping past the walls and into your bedroom throughout the night.

One time Claude had laid down for a quick, much needed nap, and his bed smelled more like Sylvain that it did him. He ended up oversleeping that time and wasted an entire afternoon. 

He’d kind of laid there, staring into the ceiling and hating himself for it after he’d woken up. 

-

“Do you think we can still win?”

Claude asked one night, pressing his hands to his eyes in an effort to rub the sleepiness from them. He laid his elbows on the table, over the new battle plans he’d drawn up. Sylvain was lounging on the bed behind him, hands behind his head. 

“Do you want the honest or the optimistic answer?” replied Sylvain, and Claude didn’t respond. It was already an answer in itself.

“How do you think I should smile?” He asked again, more on an impulse.

“What?”

“My smile. As a leader, it’s my job to put on a nice face so everyone feels like they can push through, even if I feel otherwise. Honesty isn’t all that good for morale, after all.”

Claude paused.

“I’ve been told my smile doesn’t match my eyes, so I want to make sure it looks real before we go to war.”

Sylvain hummed. 

“I don’t think your smile isn’t real,” he murmured. “Just that you don’t trust anyone enough to let them know that it is, so you guard it with your eyes.”

-

They were never supposed to win, Claude knew that much, but it still felt like his body was trying to sink down below from whence it came as more and more Imperial soldiers spilled from the forest below the mountains at a steady pace, like fire ants.

Red—everything looked red. The violent shade of red-orange in the sky as the sun started to hide below the trees. The ground sprinkled with blood from both sides. His clothes, his hands, droplets stuttering down his face and into his eyes. He’d lost his bow ages ago, after being snuck on by someone. He’d grabbed the arrows out of his quiver and stabbed them up through the intersection of their jaw and neck, feeling the click and slide of bone and tendons under the shaft of the arrow like it’d become an extension of his hand. It was all _do now think later_ , and Claude would later sit and allow himself to feel horribly sick, but for now everything was just driven by pure desperation.

Dimitri roared from somewhere behind him, and the screams of whatever poor souls got in his way rang in his ears. 

Before, their fighting had always seemed purposeful and controlled; dark mages, Lonato with his vengeful crusade, fending off groups of assassins and bandits and rescuing little girls. Now, as cries rang everywhere and the chaos permeated his vision like a thick fog, he felt like he was beginning to see things for what they truly were: senseless bloodshed.

Was this the cost of power? Was this what it was going to take for one person to claw their way to the top and execute their vision? Was Claude prepared to build his dreams atop a foundation of corpses?

He had always held fast in his beliefs, but in the face of something like this. . .Claude could admit to himself that he wasn’t so sure, at least in this moment.

“Rhea and Byleth have issued the order to retreat!”

The message was being passed along, soldiers and knights holding a defensive line as students and some of the squires and younger knights began to retreat. As Claude managed to shove his sword between a chink in an enemy soldier’s armor, a roar louder than Dimitri’s echoed above their heads. 

Claude whirled around to see a great beast soar over the monastery, shooting light from its mouth.

“What the—“

Someone else nearly ran him though with a lance and he threw himself back into battle. Dimitri, still parrying blows and shoving aside soldiers with heavy swings of his weapon, didn’t even seem to notice anything amiss, like maybe the giant green dragon flying over their damn heads.

“Go!” Someone shoved at him, and he stumbled backwards. Shamir turned and notched three arrows and hit all targets on point. She looked back at him, dirt-streaked face hard and stern. “The Knights have this handled, _now go_!”

Strategic retreat. 

Claude dropped the iron sword, which was nearly broken anyway, and snatched up a fairly decent looking lance from a nearby fallen soldier. Painfully, he was reminded of hands covering his own and a low voice in his ear, before he shook his head. Sylvain was probably already gone from the battlefield like the rest of the students, following Teach’s orders to fall back. 

Claude had always been the first to run when he knew the odds were slim; first to back out of a fight to plan some scheme instead, first to abandon Dimitri and Edelgard to bandits.

First to run all the way to Fódlan on an impulse and a vague notion of a pipe dream. 

He fled.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> five years pass. a reunion, an unexpected ally, and a new mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> right, so i got too invested and then the supposed final chapter was growing until suddenly it was too huge and spanned too wide and i had to split it up into multiple parts so here we are. i changed the title to fit the theme more cause i guess the timeskip content outweighs the pre-timeskip and then 'daft pretty boys' just felt too juvenile lmao
> 
> some notes: i'm unsure of whether to tag it graphic violence, but note that it's set in a war so i guess it gets violent a normal amount for the setting. ALSO i changed a bit in the previous chapter-just the section about hilda and cyril. i completely forgot that cyril talks about his background to claude so i tweaked it a bit lmao. also this is turning out to be pretty golden deer centric, so most of the BL + BE stuff will be happening offscreen and won't get the same amount of focus.
> 
> lastly, content warning for unintentional self-harm. not graphic, lasts for a sentence but for anyone who doesn't want it, skip the paragraph starting with "In his lightheadedness..."
> 
> p.s. adhjshs thank u so much all for the kudos and comments. sincerely thought no one was gonna like this so...im feeling really better and more serious about this fic as a whole. love you all!! <3

Returning to Derdriu didn’t feel real.

Claude had taken longer than he should have, mostly because he’d somehow managed to get lost on the way out of the Central Church territory back to the Alliance. He probably should’ve been more suspicious when he didn’t run into any of his classmates. 

Or _anyone_ , for that matter. He’d been so turned around he’d almost made it halfway to the Valley of Torment before he realized it. 

Part of it was because he’d had half of his mind on the battle for the entirety of his journey—and the other part was that it was way too easy to lose track of time when you were alone. He’d nearly driven himself insane trying to understand so many things: the beast above the monastery, Edelgard’s ulterior motives, whatever group Kronya and Solon had been part of. 

He could only come up with so many theories with imagination alone before he started to sound like a complete lunatic. 

What if the Church had been hiding some demonic beasts under the monastery and Edelgard had found out? What if Rhea and Seteth had a secret business making demonic beasts out of heretics and that was why Edelgard wanted crest stones—what if _Edelgard_ had been making demonic beasts out of people? What if the beast above the monastery—Claude recalled Solon’s drawings of a great winged dragon with a crest stone in its head, faintly—was the Immaculate One? The Sword’s crest stone had always been missing—what if the beast had been _B_ _yleth_?

The last one always left a lump in Claude’s throat. 

-

Claude had arrived at the city gates, tired and clothed in an ill-fitting doublet and trousers from a village he’d passed on the way. The guards had taken one look at him and sent for him to be brought to the center of the city, where his grandfather greeted him with an awkward hug. As always, Claude stiffened instinctively; he could feel his grandfather tense at his reaction, and it made him slightly guilty.

“I don’t know if any of the others made it back,” Claude said, trying to put it behind them. “I traveled alone.”

“Duke Goneril has already sent me a letter detailing his thoughts about the little lady’s battle wounds,” his grandfather said, waving at an attendant. “And so have Counts Ordelia and Gloucester, as well as Margrave Edmund. It seems that it has fallen to me to answer for the Church’s ‘crimes’ in the absence of the archbishop.”

At this, he looked expectantly at Claude.

“I don’t know what happened to R—Lady Rhea,” Claude shook his head. “Last I saw, she was with. . .my teacher. I don’t know what happened to them, either.”

With every unanswered question, the stone in his stomach weighed heavier. Claude hated not knowing anything. It made him feel like a fool, and he hated feeling stupid above everything else. 

“All I saw was. . .” Claude started to say, wanting to at least have an answer to _something_ , before he hesitated. He thought back to the beast he had seen flying above the monastery, great wings each the span of the dining hall beating up loud gusts of wind. 

The echoes of a guttural roar reverberated in his head. He shook his head, “Never mind.”

“Alright,” his grandfather replied, although he watched him with a curious glint in his eye that made Claude’s hackles rise. “Go. They’ll have drawn a bath for you, you must be tired from your. . .rather long journey.”

 _We’ll talk later_ , he didn’t say. He would be expecting a reason as to why exactly Claude had been the last of the Alliance nobles to return, when Derdriu had been the closest to Garreg Mach, and Claude would have to prepare his answers.

It wasn’t until he’d lowered himself into the water that everything seemed to sink in. 

Everything that had happened in the past weeks were real; Byleth and Rhea were gone, the Empire a looming invisible that felt suffocating to even think about. And he was only sure of Hilda and the other Alliance nobles—had all of the Deer made it home? 

It was easy for Claude to get by, like every other noble with a crest. All he had to do when he passed through a village or town in the Alliance was flash the Crest of Riegan and he’d be taken care of by whoever had the nicest lodgings in the area. What about Leonie, Ignatz, and Raphael? What about Ashe and Dedue? Dorothea and Petra?

(He felt even worse, thinking about Petra—Petra was unfamiliar with Fòdlan, and without the privileges Claude’s crest brought. He had nothing better to do than sincerely hope that she’d make it back to Brigid safe, even if he knew his hope did absolutely nothing.)

Dimitri had been out of his mind during the battle. Claude doubted that he’d be able to make it back to Fhirdiad without help. Sylvain—

Sylvain was one of the least likely to run into trouble on the way back, but Claude could admit to himself that he worried all the same.

He spent much too long sitting in the tub, his eyes slightly watery from more than the strong scent of the whatever oils and spices the attendants had added to the water.

-

The situation worsened in the coming months, but in the quiet way that opened up a pit in Claude’s chest and gnawed outwards with dread. Marquis Vestra was assassinated, Hubert taking his place. Count Rowe of the Kingdom fell to ‘illness’, and so did many of the minor lords near Empire territory. 

-

Claude’s grandfather gave out about six moons in. In his last moments, he’d asked for Claude alone to sit at his bedside.

“I never got to ask, before,” He said, hands folded over his stomach from his position on the bed. He was looking at somewhere below Claude’s neckline. Claude, confused, looked down at himself. “The pendant I gave you. . .?”

“Oh, um,” Claude blanked, thinking. “I—I left it in my room. At the monastery. There wasn’t time to. . .”

“Ah.” He smiled, although it looked strained. “I thought so.”

“Sorry.” Claude scratched at the back of his neck, trying not to avoid eye contact. 

“It’s alright,” his grandfather murmured, looking away and at the ceiling. He seemed to be staring into somewhere else, his green eyes glazed over. “Would you like to hear a story?”

“A. . .what?”

“Once, there was a family, a father and his two children. A girl and a boy.” He said. “They were the great loves of his life. They. . .”

He paused, sighing. 

“They were beautiful. The girl was strong, outspoken; when she wanted something, she went after it with both hands and wholeheartedly. There was no stopping her once she set her mind to something.”

Claude huffed through his nose, lips quirking up. “I’ll bet.”

His grandfather smiled, still looking at the ceiling.

“She liked arts and crafts. They both did. He was more inclined to drawing, however, while she liked—”

“Jewelry,” Claude muttered.

“Yes. One of her first projects, when they were. . .six, perhaps seven, was a necklace.”

Claude stilled, connecting the dots.

“Oh,” he murmured, suddenly feeling very guilty, “I. . .”

“No, no,” his grandfather waved dismissively, “It’s my fault. I didn’t tell you, when I gave it to you. I didn’t tell you a lot of things.”

“Neither did I,” Claude said.

His grandfather laughed, suddenly. Claude jolted a little in his seat.

“We’re going to go round in circles if we keep this up,” he said. “And I don’t have the time anymore to. . .”

He broke into a coughing fit; it sounded terrible, wet and guttural and like he was about to hack up a lung. Claude leaned over quickly, snatching up a glass of water from the nightstand, and helped him sit up a little and drink.

“Thank you.”

“Um, yeah. Sure.” Claude helped him back down and put the cup back.

His grandfather swallowed, clearing his throat. “Your mother made that pendant out of a random river stone and cheap leather, and Godfrey wore the damn thing until the day he died. If you ask me, it’s the most important Riegan heirloom.”

“Even more than Failnaught?”

“Bah,” His grandfather waved his hands, in a slashing ‘X’. “Failnaught. If they wanted me to care more about that humongous old bow—that I never use, by the way—they would’ve at least given me a nice story to go along with it. Now, your mother—do you know why it’s a moon?”

“The Riegan crest looks like a moon,” Claude guessed, confidently.

“No. Well, yes, in a sense.” His grandfather chuckled. “I was with them the day she picked the stone, off the edge of the Airmid River. We had been travelling, and it was nearing dusk; I forget what they were talking about, exactly. But all of a sudden your mother was jumping into the river, expensive clothes be damned, and Godfrey was about to follow.”

Claude raised his eyebrows, an amused smile on his face.

“I was furious. It was lucky the river was calm, and that she hadn’t gone too far. When I asked her to explain herself, she said she caught the moon.”

“Caught the. . .”

“The reflection in the river,” His grandfather explained. “I used to make up things for them. When they asked me I used to fancy the idea that we Riegans were moon children. . .your mother took that a little too far, and made it her life’s goal to chase the moon.

“She’d been clear from a young age that she never wanted to be Duke Riegan—your uncle, kind soul, always said he’d be happy to take the title on for his sister. She got the stone for him, she said, so that he could touch the moon, even if he stayed here in Leicester, while she went off on her great journey.”

“That’s sweet,” Claude said, surprised by the warmth blooming in his chest. Suddenly, he missed his mother.

“It’s been 20 years since she left,” his grandfather said, his smile bittersweet. “I’ve not a clue where she’s been, what stories she has to tell. . .I always thought I’d have time. That _she’d_ have time.”

“I. . .could tell you about her,” Claude offered. “If you’d like.”

His grandfather shook his head, looking pained. “No need. But. . .”

“Yeah?”

His grandfather reached out and took his hand.

“I always promised them that I would always be here. To listen to their stories, when all was done. Claude—”

He squeezed weakly.

“When I first met you, I thought I was getting a part of hers. You’re a new story all on your own, and I wish I could’ve been part of it to the end, but. . .alas. Thank you.”

His grandfather withdrew his hand from Claude’s hold, gently angling his face with a hold on his jaw. 

“The moment Judith brought you here, and you looked at me with those same bright, grass-green eyes of hers, I knew. I didn’t need to see your crest.” he said. He smiled, and it looked like Claude’s mother’s—small and hesitant, but genuine. His eyes crinkled; water welled up around them, just enough for one to trickle down his cheek. “We’ve been stuck in tradition and the same cycle for years, and neither I nor Fòdlan had never seen you coming. I think it’s a sign.”

Claude stared at him, mouth working around nonexistent words. 

His grandfather dropped his hand, shaking his head and chuckling.

“Pardon this sentimental old fool,” he croaked, swiping away his tears, “Age and fear has made my tongue loose. But if you get the chance, tell your mother. . .that I was proud of her. I always was.”

-

He had never gotten close with his grandfather, maintaining a superficial bond over chess and politics. But as he buried him, surrounded by attendants and less-than-caring roundtable allies barring Judith, he found himself wishing that maybe he should’ve tried harder.

-

(Later, he cleaned out the drawers in the Duke—in his office. There was a secret compartment, a small box at the top corner under the desk. Claude opened it.

There was a sheaf of papers—a draft of a peace treaty proposing the end of conflict between the Alliance and Almyra, extensive notes and comments in the margins in two sets of handwriting. An old and faded sketch of two children in ink. Two letters.

 _We named him Claude,_ one said in his mother’s handwriting. _He was born on the 24th of the Blue Sea Moon. His eyes are the brightest grass-green. He cried a lot. He’s beautiful._

There was a last line, scratched out with heavy lines of black ink, replaced with a hasty signature. 

_My daughter,_ the other letter said, in his grandfather’s spidery handwriting. Below it, a dot of ink where the first line was supposed to start. That was where it ended, the rest of the yellowed parchment starkly blank.

Claude sat on the floor, leaning back against the side of the desk like he used to when he’d sneak into his father’s study. He shuffled through the peace treaty papers for the remainder of the afternoon, observing with a detached emptiness that his grandfather had been thinking about opening up Fódlan’s Locket, too. 

The old man must have been just as, if not more lonely than Claude. The gaping hole in him yawned painfully.)

-

Count Gloucester declared support of the Empire. 

-

Count Ordelia followed. 

-

Claude retreated to his office and wrote several letters to his mother, each more less composed and more aggressive in tone than the last. He burned them afterwards, sitting cross-legged on the floor and watching the fire lick at the parchment until the paper blackened and curled in on itself, timidly.

-

At the next roundtable conference, a messenger came in to deliver the news that Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd had been put on trial on count of the murder of the Grand Duke of Faerghus. 

Claude met the piercing gazes of Duke Goneril and Margrave Edmund across the table, acutely aware of the two empty seats on either side of him, and pushed down the anxiety and hysteria swelling in his gut to continue the discussion on Derdriu’s economy and how trade routes were going to be affected by Gloucester and Ordelia’s change of allegiance. 

With every word out of his mouth, it felt like his throat was closing up tight. 

-

“He’s nineteen,” He heard Margrave Edmund say to Duke Goneril as he left the conference room. “We’re taking orders from a _nineteen-year-old_.” 

“Emperor Edelgard is the same age,” Duke Goneril said.

“My thanks, Goneril.” Margrave Edmund replied. “That is completely reassuring. I am filled with the utmost of confidence. _Truly_.”

-

At least Edelgard had Hubert, Claude thought, as he sat with his back against the side of the desk. He was shuffling through the Almyra-Alliance peace treaty papers, again, with a pencil in hand to add his own notes to his grandfather and uncle’s.

The words looked unfamiliar. Claude wondered how long it had been since he’d thought about this.

-

Dimitri was sentenced to death after a farce of a trial. 

Judith dropped by to inform Claude that Lady Cornelia was in line to assume control of Fhirdiad, and that Fraldarius and Gautier had declared themselves separate from her. Galatea remained neutral.

“They’re calling it the _Dukedom_ now,” Judith said, pouring him whiskey. “I’ve heard that Lady Cornelia was seen travelling from Rowe to Fhirdiad, so I’m sure it’s all unofficially Empire territory anyway.”

Claude didn’t know what to say to that, so he nodded and downed the whiskey in one go. Judith watched him over the rim of her glass. Claude would have been suspicious of poison if he hadn’t checked while Judith had been looking for glasses.

“Gautier and Fraldarius already fended off an attack by Dukedom troops from Fhirdiad. Not wasting any time, that Cornelia.” Judith threw back her drink without so much as a flinch or grimace. “I heard that Margrave Gautier’s son is leading the opposition, with Fraldarius’. Weren’t you schoolmates with them?”

_Classmates. With Gautier._

Claude stared into his glass, and decided to keep quiet.

“The Lance of Ruin is a powerhouse, that’s for sure. Thing blazed through Dukedom forces without trouble. They’re saying it was like a firestorm in winter,” Judith chuckled, shaking her head. “I think between that and Aegis, Gautier and Fraldarius are set for a while. They know what they’re doing.”

“They defend the border from Sreng.” Claude said, detachedly. He tilted his glass and watched droplets pool at the corner; he waved off Judith picking up the bottle and offering to pour him more alcohol.. 

“Right, right.”

-

Claude dreamt of vibrant red hair, burning bright against the stark white of snow. 

-

Sometimes the vibrant red was blood seeping into the snow, almost indiscernible from the head of hair. Those nights, he left the bed and worked in the office until he’d pass out into an exhausted, but dreamless sleep over papers and books.

-

He’d wasted an evening drinking in his office when Dimitri was officially declared dead; sitting on the ledge by the window and thinking about how he used to trounce Dimitri at chess in their school days, crowing smugly over his victory as the prince of Faerghus would rub the back of his neck and sheepishly admit for the umpteenth time that strategy was not his strong suit—but thank him for not holding back, anyway.

In his lightheadedness, he hadn’t shed a tear. But he’d felt hollow enough that he’d actually smashed his own arm with the empty bottle to check and ended up securing himself a trip to the infirmary. Nobody was there to reprimand him the next morning except for the burning shame of his own embarrassment.

He’d sat still in the lumpy infirmary bed, staring up at the wall. There was an awful gaping hole at his center, gnawing outwards. His head had pounded but he wasn’t sure if it was from the hangover or the crushing feeling of helplessness. For once, he had no semblance of a contingency plan—only shaky hands, his heartbeat pressing in on his ears and a painful desperation to reach into the past and—

That was when he cried. 

The corners of his eyes stung badly with every tear that fell, and he hugged his middle in a death grip to try and physically fill up the awful empty with something, making himself smaller. It didn’t work. He cried for Dimitri, for Byleth, for Edelgard, every regret he’d gathered in the past years; and he must have sat there doubled over, tears stuttering over his cheeks, for hours. 

It was too shameful to admit to even himself, but in that moment he’d thrown away his crazy pipe dream of uniting the world. It wasn’t worth it. He wanted to go home. 

“ _You’re not dying, boy,_ ” his mother would tell him, when he’d curl up at home, crying and sulking. “ _G_ _et up._ ”

Claude drew his legs up and leaned his forehead against his knees.

“You’re not dead yet,” he whispered. 

But there was nothing to do about the awful emptiness.

Nothing to do but wait and bide his time.

-

Stretching out his leg and resting it atop the chair’s backrest, Claude felt blindly for the top drawer on the desk he was sitting on. With his other hand, he tried to read Margrave Edmund’s thin, cursive script through sleep-heavy eyes. 

“Some of these don’t even look Fódlan,” he grumbled to himself, quietly. He held it closer to the candlelight and squinted. “Damn it, where’s that magnif—“

“You have a chair for a reason, kiddo.”

There was a face in the window, barely lit by the moonlight.

“ _BAH_!” Claude screamed, nearly slipping off the desk. He dropped the letter and grabbed blindly—holding up a silver letter opener like a knife.

The face tilted backwards, mouth opening to let out a booming laugh. “I’ve still got it! You didn’t see me coming, did ya? Is this what Fódlan teaches you?”

Claude spluttered, scrambling off the desk and squinting. 

“ _Nader_?”

The man climbed into the room, sighing as his boots hit the floor. He stretched, the joints in his back popping. “Ah, that’s good.”

Claude lowered his arm, still staring. 

“Well?” Nader faced him. He sighed. “You haven’t changed.”

He walked forward, arms open. 

Claude instinctively wrapped his arms around Nader’s middle, feeling somewhat like he’d regressed to age ten and was sullenly accepting a hug he’d tried to covertly wheedle out of his training instructor.

(Nader had acted oblivious until Claude had stomped and yelled, “ _I want a hug_!”, red in the face. 

“ _Well, why didn’t you say so_ ?” He’d said, picking Claude up. “ _Use your words properly, you brat_.”)

Claude breathed in deeply, smelling home and Almyran spices and wide, open fields. He buried his face in Nader’s shirt, feeling the tension roll off of him. Nader chuckled. 

“Missed me, did ya.” He said gruffly, patting Claude on the back. 

“Maybe.” Claude said, muffled. “Old man.”

“Brat.” Nader pulled back, clasping Claude by the back of the neck. “Well, look at you!”

He picked up the candle off the table and held it up to Claude’s face. Claude made a panicked noise in the back of his throat and leaned back. 

“You’ve got. . .” Nader gestured vaguely at his own jawline to indicate the scruff on Claude’s face, grinning, “Just like your old man in _his_ twenties!”

“Yeah, well, don’t burn it off, will you?” Claude muttered, pushing at the hand holding the candle gently. “How is he?”

“He’s fine.” Nader pulled back. “Still strong. He misses you. Your mother acts like she doesn’t, but she’s gotta miss you too. She just doesn’t let the likes of me see that stuff, naturally.”

Claude smiled slightly, looking out the window and ignoring the pang he felt in his chest. He frowned, suddenly.

“Hey,” He crossed his arms, “So what’re you doing here, Nader? How did you even—?”

“Took my wyvern and flew along the side, left him under the docks and went here on foot. Your ma told me which side the quarters were, but I was passing this side and saw you.” Nader shook his head, smiling. “Better get more lookouts by your docks, kid. Your defenses are wide open.”

“We’ve been spread pretty thin,” Claude ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve got my hands full with all the infighting alone. It’s not like Almyra is looking to invade anytime soon anyway, I know my father.”

“Infighting?” 

Claude sighed, wearily gesturing to the chair behind his desk. “You might as well sit down for this.”

-

“You’re leaving _now_?” His grandfather’s old adviser wrung his hands, eyeing Nader suspiciously. “With Gloucester and Ordelia under the Imperial rule’s thumb, the threat of the Empire hangs over our heads everyday—“

“Relax,” Claude said, his jaw aching from all the teeth-gritting and jaw clenching he’d been doing that morning. “I’ve settled all my affairs for a couple of days, and that’s why we’ve got our good friend Nardel here to hold the fort down while I’m gone.”

 _I don’t trust him_ , the advisor didn’t say. Claude didn’t need to hear it. The way his eyes took in Nader—it was the same look the staff of the Riegan household had given him, when he’d first set foot in Fòdlan six years ago. Nader wasn’t unaware of it, giving Claude an unreadable glance. 

“Well!” Claude clapped his hands together, forcing a smile. “I’ll be off, then. Nardel.”

“See ya, kid,” Nader grinned, bringing a heavy hand to ruffle through Claude’s hair. Claude ducked away from it and scowled. 

“You’re not even telling us where you’re going!” the advisor said, pleading, as Claude made quick strides away from them.

“Keeping an old promise,” Claude called over his shoulder, grinning wide as soon as he turned his head back to look forward. “I am a man of my word, after all.”

As always, he kept a figurative foot on the ground and tried to keep his heart from soaring too high. 

But he couldn’t help the small smile on his face as he steered his wyvern. He thought of the food he packed—a sizeable amount, but not too much that he couldn’t pretend it was just for himself if no one showed—remembering the night that all three school houses had shared dinner together. His smile dimmed when he remembered it was Edelgard who had helped him prepare the feast. 

Still, as the wind whipped his face, he couldn’t help the vision that swam before his eyes in spots: A pair of hands calloused from handling bows and swords, stained in pigment. A booming laugh, the kind that could only come from deep in your center. The smell of rose-petal tea. White hair spilling over crossed arms and an open book on a library table. An archer’s glove, a quiet voice.

A pair of bronze-brown eyes from across a game board, unreadable but intoxicating all the same.

_Here’s to hoping I won’t just be touring my wyvern around the old monastery._

-

“Yeesh,” Claude murmured to himself as he and his wyvern circled what was left of Garreg Mach. “The knights really hightailed it out of here, huh, Red?”

His wyvern made a low crooning noise in the back of her throat. He scratched the side of her neck comfortingly.

“C’mon, let’s find a good spot to land.”

The Officers Academy turned out to be the least damaged portion of the monastery—which made sense, Claude supposed. Bandits or raiders probably had no interest in school supplies or textbooks about history and tactics. 

He and Red landed on the open area in front of the classrooms. The grass was overgrown, weeds were everywhere, and a cat startled awake from its spot on a vine-covered bench. It stared at Claude, blue eyes wide. Claude blinked.

It leapt off silently and disappeared in the direction of the dormitories.

Claude took one step forward, but didn’t feel quite ready to confront the dormitories just yet, so he turned in the opposite direction.

Even after witnessing the fall of the place itself five years ago, the utter silence was unsettling. The only sounds he could hear were the tap of his boots and the click of Red’s claws on stone. 

“So,” He cleared his throat, looking back at Red awkwardly, thinking of Marianne and Dorte. “I used to live here, but it was much, um, cleaner back then.”

He was more used to wielding his words to poke a reaction out of someone. Or to poke someone into doing something. Red stared back at him with her big brown eyes, and snorted.

Claude sighed.

-

He didn’t bother looking too much into town. He’d never gone much, even in his school days, and he had a feeling he might run into dangerous company.

Instead, he took his time walking around, noting the degree of disrepair the monastery had fallen into. All the nicer silverware in the dining hall was gone, some of the candle holders in the entrance and reception halls as well. The stables were deserted, with an infestation of rats that Claude did not feel the need to look into all that much.

The armor on the training dummies had been taken too, and most of the training weapons. The pond was dirty and the stagnant, moldy water inviting plenty of insects. 

The plants in the greenhouse were either overgrown or wilted, in the case of some of the rarer, high maintenance plants. Claude eyed the remains of the native Duscur plants, his heart twisting.

And—

“Stay,” he muttered to Red, tapping her right horn once. She bounded over to an overgrown bush by the greenhouse, crunching it down with her legs, and settled in.

The first thing he noticed was how most of the doors were wide open when he reached the second floor. He tried to recall as he passed: Ingrid, Hilda, Marianne. . .Edelgard. . .

He stopped and strode straight to the end of the hall after that one. 

There was a fine coating of dust everywhere. His notebooks were still laid open on the desk, open to pages of sketched out maps and battle plans. His books were still all over the floor, and he couldn’t tell if it was the work of someone who’d ransacked the place looking for gold, or just the way he left it. Thank gods he hadn’t left food in here.

Stepping over the mess, he got down on his hands and knees to reach under the bed and feel under the headboard.

 _Aha_. His fingers found a thin line in the wood. Pulling out the hollow block, he pulled out a small pouch and tucked it into his jacket. He felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

-

Nearing the end of the afternoon, he decided to make his last stop the cathedral. Set up camp in one of the towers with Red. If no one came by tomorrow morning, he’d leave. 

-

And as the sun was setting, Byleth arrived.

-

It got better. His old classmates made it.

As they chased off the last of the bandits, Claude looked around, noting how much each of them had grown in the past years—Lorenz had beautiful hair and a kinder face, Lysithea was so much taller, Ignatz stood straighter, Marianne was absolutely _glowing_. 

It wasn’t everyone, but—

“Hey,” someone called, near the edge of the ruins. “I guess I just missed the fighting, but I’m not too late to join, am I? Or is this a deer-event only?”

Claude’s heart felt full.

Sylvain stepped out, hands raised in mock surrender. His hair was longer, swept back from his face. His features were barely visible in the moonlight, but the tilt of his smile and the look of his eyes were familiar to Claude like muscle memory. 

-

“Where do we stay?”

Hilda asked no one in particular, as they trudged back to the monastery. “I’m guessing this place isn’t in very good shape.”

“Yeah, everything’s a mess,” Claude said, leading his wyvern up by its leash. Red was nosing curiously at the bright red tassels on the back of Lorenz’s jacket. Claude was waiting patiently for her to bump her wet nose into Lorenz’s behind so he could cackle at Lorenz’ reaction. “Everything’s ransacked and most of the stuff is gone. . .The Officers’ Academy is in good shape, though. Relatively speaking.”

“Makes sense,” Sylvain said. He was leading his horse by the reins.

“The classrooms had fireplaces, right?” Leonie mused. She jogged up to walk next to Claude. “How are the dormitories? I bet we could find some pillows and bedsheets, and use them to camp out in the classroom for the night.”

“The rooms are kind of a mess too,” Claude replied. “Especially the ones on the second floor. I think there were some that still had some pillows and blankets intact, though.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Hilda threw her head back, looking up at the sky, “I guess it’d be too much to hope that all my tools and beads are still there. I had some rare gems I never got to replace. . .”

“Let’s split up,” Leonie suggested, jogging ahead and patting Hilda on the shoulder as she passed. “Lighten up. Plenty of jewelry out there. Hey, Raphael, wanna help me get some stuff from the dormitories?”

“I’ll help,” Lysithea volunteered, hefting her bag over her shoulder as she tried to catch up. As she walked by Claude, she met his eyes with a smug look. They were at the same eye level. She flipped her hair over her shoulder as she passed.

“Hey! This changes nothing, kiddo,” Claude called, grinning. 

“I’m _twenty_ ,” Lysithea called without looking back. “And _you’re_ still irrelevant.”

Claude burst out laughing, “Oh, man, did I miss you guys.”

-

Hilda and Lorenz went inside to move the tables.

“ _Ugh_ , this dust!” Claude heard her yell. “Lorenz, I’m choking.” Very fake, exaggerated coughing. “My _delicate_ lungs. . .”

“Fear not, my dear Hilda, I will move these tables. It will not do for you to contract illness.”

A thud, and the sound of a dying cat.

“No--no, I’m fine!” Lorenz called, his voice strangled and high-pitched as he coughed. “The table leg merely fell upon my toe--Stay back, Hilda! There is a dust cloud.”

Scratching the side of Red’s neck as he fed her dried meat, Claude laughed softly to himself. Beside him, tending to everyone’s horses, Sylvain snickered.

“What a sucker.”

Marianne, handing Claude a water bucket, giggled. 

“How much are you willing to bet that the room’s going to be even messier after they’re through with it?” Claude asked her, jokingly.

Marianne merely shook her head, hiding her laugh behind a hand.

“Did Lorenz use up all his fire magic in the fight?” Sylvain said, “Here’s a thought: ask him to start up the fireplace too.”

“Oh, I like that. I can always just dampen the wood while he’s not looking.”

“Stop,” Marianne wheezed, lightly setting a hand on Claude’s shoulder as she bent over with laughter. “You’re both being mean.”

“C’mon, it’ll be fun.”

“ _Marianne_!” Hilda called from inside the classroom. “I think Lorenz’s big toe is--it’s _purple_ as his hair--”

“I, um,” Marianne visibly tried not to laugh, pointing back at the classroom. “Sorry.”

“No problem. The Duke and I have this handled,” Sylvain assured, smiling at her. 

Marianne set a hand each on Claude and Sylvain’s arm, smiling brightly. “I’m happy to see you both.”

She bowed hastily before hurrying into the room.

“It’s nice to see her happy,” Claude commented.

“Yeah,” Sylvain agreed, a fond smile on his face. “It’s a pleasant surprise.”

“On another note,” Claude said, turning back to the animals, “The Duke? Really?”

“Hey, in Faerghus we’re raised to address people by their titles.”

“Well, this isn’t Faerghus.”

“True.” Sylvain shrugged, taking a horse’s reins and securing it to a bench leg. 

Hilda and Lorenz had quieted down, and the others weren’t back yet. As they lingered by the horses and Red, Claude felt like saying something, although he wasn’t sure what. Living in the Alliance, he fancied himself good at pointless small talk, but there was just something about Sylvain.

(There was always something about Sylvain, a small part of him said.)

“So, uh. . .” Sylvain cleared his throat, rather awkwardly. He nodded at Red. “Nice wyvern.”

“Thanks. Um, this is Red.” Claude patted one of her horns. He gestured to her, stepping back a little. 

“Hey, Red,” Sylvain glanced at Claude before stepping closer to Red, holding a hand out. Red pushed her head into his hand, crooning. Sylvain exhaled on a smile, “Scales feel different from horse skin. I forget.”

“Yeah, you get used to it after a while,” Claude said.

Sylvain petted Red for a while, seemingly transfixed by her. Claude watched him, feeling a strange ache settling into his heart. The moonlight hit his face similarly to--Claude pushed those thoughts away on instinct.

“Hey, so, I might be wrong on this,” Sylvain said suddenly, “Since it’s dark and all. But nothing about Red. . .looks red.”

“Ah,” Claude laughed, although he couldn’t hide the faint nervous undertone--Sylvain raised an eyebrow curiously. He tried to put on a straight face, meeting his eyes. “It’s a long story.”

“We--”

“We’ve got the stuff!” Leonie cheered, rounding the corner from the dormitories. “Claude! Let’s set this up. You too, Sylvain.”

Sylvain sighed, “Looks like we don’t have time after all.”

Relieved but also slightly disappointed, Claude shrugged, muttering half-heartedly, “Later, maybe.”

-

“This reminds me of the good ol’ days,” Raphael said, shaking out a blanket and laying it on the floor neatly. “Right, Ignatz?”

“Um, yes,” Ignatz was helping Marianne fluff the pillows and shake off the dust. “That was before you got huge and we still fit in the bed, haha.”

“Remember the first one, you drew a welcome mat for me in front of your gate with chalk that said ‘WELCOME RAPH!’, it was _so_ cute—“

“Okay, I think that’s enough, Raphael,” Ignatz said, reddening. “Um, so does anyone else have sleepover experience?”

“Plenty of ‘em with the ladies,” Sylvain said as he fluffed a pillow. He waggled his eyebrows at Ignatz. Leonie hurled her pillow at his face, full force. Sylvain spluttered through a faceful of feathers, laughing. He tossed it back.

“Ew, you spat all over it,” Leonie said. “Yeah, back in my village. Everyone knew everyone, most of us kids grew up together like siblings.”

“I’ve got nothing,” Hilda said easily, kicking her legs up from her place on a pile of bedding and pillows. She turned over on her stomach, laying her head on her arms and grinning up at them. “I guess I have, when I was really young, but I don’t remember that much. I’m _really_ sheltered. Wait, does it count if I sometimes crash in my brother’s room to gossip and stuff?”

“When I was six, I think,” Lysithea muttered, climbing over Hilda. “Not much after that.”

“Me too,” Marianne mumbled, hugging a pillow to her chest and sitting next to Hilda. She looked thoughtful. “I, um, didn’t have much friends after I got adopted. But before. . .they were nice. I kind of miss them.”

“. . .None,” Lorenz said to his pillow, sullen.

Claude smoothed out his blanket and said, “Yeah, me too.”

Lorenz looked at him and raised an eyebrow. 

“What?” Claude snorted. “Don’t believe me?”

“I find it hard to imagine that _you_ weren’t popular, wherever you’re from.” Lorenz said.

“Oh, I _was_ popular,” Claude said cheerily, plopping down a pillow and sitting back on his heels. He spread his hands in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. “With this kind of face, who wouldn’t be? Don’t roll your eyes, Lorenz. Just not the kind of popular that got me a lot of sleepover invitations, sadly.”

He was at the end of the semicircle around the fire. Across him, Sylvain was sitting down on his own pile of blankets and pillows. He raised his eyebrows at Claude, affecting the same curious expression he’d had before. Claude simply winked and looked away. He tried not to feel too silly over a faint feeling of regret that he hadn’t ended up near the other.

-

“My father does not know I’m here,” Lorenz admitted, after Leonie mentioned passing by her village and catching up with her parents on the way to the monastery. 

“ _Ooh_ , Lorenz, you _bad boy_!” Hilda gasped, sitting up. “Same!”

“So you’re setting Count Gloucester and Duke Goneril on my sorry ass,” Claude said. “Thanks.”

“Maybe Margrave Edmund too,” Marianne added. “Sorry.”

“I asked permission,” Lysithea said. 

“Well, what about you, Mister Duke Riegan? Did _you_ get permission?” Hilda stuck her tongue at him.

Claude sighed, exasperated. “I don’t have anyone to get permission from. I _had_ to do several days of paperwork in advance, write to the roundtable folks—one of which is your father, by the way—that I was going to be out of contact for a few days, get a retainer to stand in for me and run away from the advisor before he tied me to my chair to keep me from leaving.”

“Oh, yeesh,” Hilda recoiled, disgusted.

“Yeah.”

“Man, Claude, thanks for doing all that stuff.” Raphael said, earnestly. “For like, the past five years. Everyone’s talking about how you’ve held up the Alliance this long.”

“Wait, really?” Claude stared at him. 

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Ignatz interjected, “My parents and brother thought the Alliance going to collapse after Gloucester and Ordelia sided with the Empire, for sure. But you’ve managed to keep what’s left under control for three or four years, give or take. Even if our situation isn’t all that great. . .I think everyone agrees that you’ve done better than anyone else would in your place.”

“My adoptive father can be harsh,” Marianne said, “But even he’s said he’s impressed.”

“Huh.” Claude said. “Kind of thought he saw me as just some kid bossing him around.”

“That’s just how he is,” Marianne said, staring into the distance with a pained expression. “He’s very loud about his opinions.”

“All things considered,” Lorenz said, “Your side of the country is faring well. They don’t call you the Master Tactician for nothing.”

“Wait, what—what? What do they call me?” Claude asked incredulously, sitting up and looking at Lorenz. 

“The Master Tactician?” Lorenz stared at him with wide eyes.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever—who came up with that?” Claude demanded. 

“I’m merely going along with what everyone else calls you.” Lorenz huffed. 

“It was Judith, wasn’t it?” Claude laid back down, glaring at the ceiling. “I bet it was Judith. She’s always coming up with the most ridiculous nicknames. Master Tactician. Pft.”

“It’s a cool nickname,” Hilda yawned. “Means you’ve got a huge brain.”

“The biggest,” Sylvain said. “The biggest, sexiest brain of them all.”

“Sylvain, please stop talking.” Lysithea said, muffled.

“Do you wanna compare brain sizes, Claude?”

Claude snickered, hiding his laugh in his pillow.

“Sylvain, I’m gonna shove my pillow in your goddamn mouth.” Leonie threatened.

“And then what?” Somehow, Sylvain could get across that he was winking from sound alone.

There was an abrupt flurry of rustling sounds. Sylvain squeaked.

“ _Leonie_ ,” Marianne yelped, “Don’t—“

-

“I went to the east of Fraldarius and travelled down from there,” Sylvain said, in response to Raphael asking how his journey went. “Conand and Galatea, at the edge. It was kind of scary, actually—I’m pretty sure I heard something by Oghma before I got to the monastery.” 

“A. . .ghost?” Lysithea grimaced. 

“Nah—well, it could’ve been the ghost of an animal, I guess,” Sylvain conceded. “The villagers said it’s been lurking in the surrounding forest for a couple of months. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. It felt like I was being watched, when I went through those woods. Creepy.”

“Cold, ghost-infested, possibly monster-infested, uptight people—“ Hilda shuddered. “I’m so glad I was born in the Alliance.”

“We’re pretty monster-infested, actually,” Ignatz said, a little strained.

-

“Hey,” Raphael said, after a lull in conversation. “So when are you guys gonna leave?”

Silence. 

Claude shifted, turning his head. Lorenz, beside him, was picking at a piece of lint on his blanket. Ignatz, laying on his stomach, had buried his face in his notebook.

“Um. . .” Hilda said. 

“Whenever you guys are leaving,” Sylvain spoke up. “Hey, professo—should we still call you that? Whatever. Where are you going after this?”

“I don’t know,” Byleth said.

“Do you still have any of your old mercenary contacts?” Claude asked. 

“No.”

Claude bit his lip. He already knew that Byleth had no relatives besides Jeralt. 

“I’ll stay here,” Byleth said, after a moment. 

Claude’s eyebrows raised in alarm and he sat up a little. As if on cue, others burst into protest.

“By _yourself_?” Leonie said loudly, sitting up straight.

“No you won’t,” Lysithea said, as if her word was law.

“But there are _rats_ ,” Hilda cried. 

“You can’t live like this.” Lorenz said, sounding alarmed.

Byleth cut them all off, “I’ll be fine.”

“It’ll be awfully lonely,” Marianne spoke up, peering out of her cocoon of blankets. “I—I don’t think it’d very good for anyone.”

“Come back to my village with me,” Leonie said, suddenly. 

“You’re doing an apprenticeship,” Byleth replied. 

“I can learn from the best,” Leonie retorted. “You. This place is in ruins, you can’t stay here. If you really don’t--you know you could probably have your pick, I’m sure everyone here is happy to put you up as long as you want. You’re our teacher.”

Everyone murmured in assent, except--

“Guys,” Raphael interrupted. “Cut it out.”

He cleared his throat, sounding serious. “We should listen to them, before whatever else we wanna say. Professor, what do you want?”

Byleth pursed their lips, then said, quietly, “I want to stay here.”

“Why?” Ignatz blurted, asking the question that was probably on everyone’s minds. “Is it because. . .are you still hoping Rhea will come back?”

“No,” Teach said. “This is where my parents are buried. The greenhouse is nice. I like the pond. It’s the longest place I’ve stayed at. . .I just like it here.”

Nobody argued after an answer like that.

-

“Well,” Leonie said, firmly, after about fifteen minutes. “I’ll stay here too, then.”

“But your--”

“I took the apprenticeship to learn how to be a mercenary,” Leonie said. “And I’m having a sleepover with the greatest one in all of Fodlan. Besides, I’m. . .there’s no way I’m gonna just leave you alone in a place like this.”

“Okay,” Byleth said. Claude peered at them. They were smiling.

-

Five minutes after that was settled:

“Many of the texts in the library are valuable resources,” Lysithea said. “My parents wouldn’t object if I were to stay a little longer. For research.”

-

“I’m gonna stay,” Hilda declared, citing no reason.

“Me too,” Marianne said quickly.

-

“I can stay a little longer, I guess,” Ignatz said. “Like a vacation. Goddess knows I’ve earned it.” 

-

A hiss and a thump. 

“Ow, don’t kick me.”

“Raphael.”

“Iggy, you know Maya. I said I’d be back tomorrow.”

“Maya is twenty, she can take care of the business—honestly, you’re coddling her. Look at Lysithea, for goddess’ sake.”

“. . .”

“Raphael, may I remind you that you were the one who started this whole conversation.”

“I mean, yeah, but. . .I was really in the moment, you know? Now I’m like, thinking again.”

“It’s only for a couple of days, maybe weeks. What’s there to think about?”

“Ugh—yeah, okay, okay. Guys, I’m staying. A little longer.”

“We are aware,” Lorenz said.

-

“This is the first time I’ve directly disobeyed my father’s orders.”

“Oh, cry me a river, Lorenz.”

“I was going to say that I might as well make the most of it and lengthen my time away from Gloucester.”

“Oh—yeah, you go, Lorenz!”

-

“Um, Sylvain, Claude.” Hilda called out. “Yoohoo.”

“Guys, he’s the leader of the Alliance,” Leonie groaned. “He’s probably feeling awkward because he can’t just up and leave the job like we can. And Sylvain is from the Kingdom.”

“Oh, right, sorry.” Hilda said.

“I said I’d be gone for a few days,” Claude offered. “So I can stay. Besides, I’ve got a good retainer. He can handle it if I put off coming back for a while.”

“Me too.” Sylvain added after a pause. Claude looked at him. Sylvain smiled faintly, before looking away.

-

“It feels weird to just cut it short like this, even if we’re going to help the professor settle in.” Leonie said, a couple minutes after Sylvain had spoken. “I mean—do you guys remember when we made this pact five years ago? Before the ball?”

The ball. Claude hummed, feeling surprised to note that it _had_ been five whole years since the whole thing—thinking back, he vaguely remembered dancing with Marianne, and the view of the night sky from the cathedral with Sylvain’s arm wrapped around his back firmly.

If he let himself dig deeper: the vision of a faint streak of gold across Sylvain’s mouth, like stardust.

“Back then, I would’ve thought that we’d reunite under. . .better circumstances,” Leonie was saying. “That it’d be at the millenium festival, that’d it’d be like the ball. Now it’s. . .yeah, I mean, we’re not entirely that bad off, but. Everything always feels like it’s about to fall apart at any moment.”

“I feel the same,” Lorenz spoke, shifting. His elbow brushed Claude’s side as he folded his hands over his stomach and looked up at the ceiling. “Like the edge of a precipice, or the near end of a chess game—the enemy is setting the pieces up for a move we cannot see. But the impending end is. . .palpable. Something in the air.”

“Suffocating,” Marianne added.

“Indeed.”

“I just gotta—you know, not that I want them to, but why hasn’t the Empire taken the Alliance yet?” Raphael asked. “I’m not too good at all this politics stuff, but with the way things are going I woulda thought we’d be Imperial territory by now.”

“The infighting has a silver lining, in a sense,” Claude replied, after a moment of hesitation. He glanced at Lorenz, who was looking at him curiously. “The moment Gloucester changed loyalties they knew it was the beginning of the end. Gloucester is our main source of food supply. The Empire isn’t going to waste resources for something they think is a sure win, especially since their armies are currently focused somewhere else, I assume.”

“The prices in the market have skyrocketed in the past four years, quite steadily,” Ignatz said. “Gloucester hasn’t locked itself out from us, not completely, but that—more and more people aren’t going to be able to afford it, and. . .eventually. . .”

“They’re waiting for us to bend and try to negotiate a deal,” Claude finished flatly. “I mean, for me and what’s left of the round table. Once we do that, it’s over.”

It was a truth that Claude had resigned himself to over the years, and all that was left for him to do was to hold the Alliance together while he thought of plan after plan. 

“What’s gonna happen after the Empire takes us?” Raphael asked. 

“A lot of the laws and policies are going to change,” Lorenz answered, softly. “The Emperor has been working on reworking many of the systems and rules in Fòdlan, from what I gather. I. . .actually, I fear that House Gloucester awaits the same fate as House Aegir did, all those years ago.”

“You think Edelgard’s going to dissolve the house and. . .” Claude addressed him.

“Yes, um, overthrow my father.” Lorenz cleared his throat. “Which I would have preferred to do myself as I took his title, but—I will admit that I am. Unsettled. In this position. For reasons I’m not very sure of.”

“Edelgard. . .” Lysithea said, “She--her goals are--I’m not against her ideals. But I find that I am loathe to--to fight any one of you, if it comes to it.”

Claude sat up, opening his mouth to tell her that if it came down to it, she _should_ fight for the Empire, given the Alliance’s steadily declining condition. 

“You won’t have to,” Hilda said. “See, Claude’s got a plan. Sorry, _scheme_. I saw that look in your eye while we were fighting the bandits--you’ve cooked up something. Haven’t you, Claude?”

Claude froze, looking at her briefly. She was looking back at him, her eyes steady and confident. He looked at the rest of them and was surprised to see everyone giving him the same look. Lorenz was looking at him with no trace of the hostility and distrust he’d had for him five years ago, only a slightly worried tilt to his mouth. Marianne was smiling at him, looking perked up.

Even Sylvain had lifted his head from were it was buried in his arms, watching him with an unreadable expression. 

Instead of the same crushing weight he felt whenever Edmund or the other round table allies looked at him with piercing, accusing stares--he felt different. There was weight, still, but he felt like he was getting excited.

A good kind of pressure, he decided. And it wasn’t like he’d been idle--seeing Teach again had turned a couple of gears in his head.

He smiled, “I might have a couple of things up my sleeve.”

“Cool, I’m in.” Hilda yawned. Everyone murmured assent. “I was wondering when you’d bring it up. Just tell us your big plan in the morning, and it’s a deal from Goneril. My brain feels like _mush_. Guys?”

“Hey, whatever you need,” Leonie piped up quickly, “I’ve got some contacts of my own now.”

“I’m not sure what a bunch of merchants could help with, but count me in,” Ignatz added.

“If it’ll keep my lil’ sis and the Alliance safe, I’ll help with whatever.”

Lorenz cleared his throat. “I swear that none of this will reach my father’s ears.”

“Likewise,” Lysithea murmured.

“Um, I’m not sure what I can help with, but I’ll try my best,” Marianne said.

“You have my loyalty,” Byleth said, softly.

“I’m in,” Sylvain finished up the impromptu roll call. 

Claude blinked in the dark.

“Um, thanks.” He felt like he’d just started something bigger than it seemed. “Seriously.”

-

Sometime before dawn, Claude woke up.

Lorenz had moved in his sleep and was half draped over him, Raphael turned towards them both. They were swaddled in blankets. He moved Lorenz and sat up, rubbing his eyes. Over on Raphael’s side, Ignatz was curled up into a ball and pressed up against his back. Even as he used his own cape as a blanket, he was still shivering slightly.

Claude took his blanket and laid it over Ignatz, feeling the pull of sympathy.

Leonie had Hilda and Marianne sleeping on a shoulder each. She was probably going to have dead arms by the time she woke up. Lysithea was sprawled out over most of the space and pushing the other three into the corner of the blanketed area, which looked hilarious. Claude committed it to memory, wishing there was a better way to keep a record of things like this. 

Past them, Byleth’s spot was empty, the only evidence of them a misshapen pillow over rumpled sheets. Sylvain was facing away from the others, most of his form covered by a blanket. Only the tufts of his red hair stuck out from the blanket, messy and sticking out everywhere.

Claude got up and picked up his jacket before heading out.

-

Once he was out of the classroom, he picked a random direction and started walking, telling himself to leave it up to fate whether he’d run into Byleth or not. He wasn’t in the mood to play another round of conversations.

He ended up at the benches between the training grounds and the academy. Byleth wasn’t there.

He got up on a bench and balanced atop the curved backrest instead of sitting properly. He smirked to himself, imagining the look on Seteth’s face if he could see the way Claude just casually laid his boots on the once-pristine benches. 

Making himself comfortable, he felt around the inside of his jacket. He took the pouch out and pulled it open to shake the contents out into his palm.

He picked the pendant up, untangling the leather cord, and held it up to the morning light, admiring the murky light blue stone. 

_“Your mother made that pendant_ ,” his grandfather had said. “ _Out of a random river stone and cheap leather, and Godfrey carried that damn thing around until the day he died.”_

He brought it down and rubbed at the rough edges, huffing. 

_And it’s the most precious heirloom the Riegan family owns._

“Bet you’re glad it didn’t get stolen by bandits, huh,” Claude murmured, to the pendant. He closed his palm around it, feeling the pointed edges of the moon shape dig into his palm gently. 

He wondered how to break it to his mother, if he’d make it home after the war. That the two of them were the last remaining members of the Riegan family.

Claude thought that she’d always assumed they’d be there; whenever he’d ask, as a child, she’d wave it off with a shrug and vague answers, turning his attention to other things. 

“ _Someday_ ,” she’d say, her eyes untouched by her smile. “ _In better times_.”

Claude swallowed, realizing he was becoming much like the same—he hadn’t seen his parents in six years, and how funny was it that it only seemed to sink in now? 

It had been three months since Nader had come to Fòdlan, and that was more than enough time for someone to. . .he thought of Godfrey and his grandfather, and the letters in his desk back at the Riegan estate, and felt an abrupt urge to write his parents a letter.

“Good morning,” someone said. 

Claude stiffened, looking over his shoulder, and immediately felt somewhat offended for no reason. 

Sylvain draped his arms over the back of the bench, blinking blearily at Claude’s closed fist. “What’cha up to?”

His voice was rough and croaky from sleep, and his hair was mussed—not the artful kind. The back was sticking up in a cowlick and some parts stuck out at odd angles. He’d taken his outer tunic off, dressed in a flimsy white button-up that was only buttoned up halfway. 

Claude started counting to ten and looked away before his eyes strayed further downwards.

“Nothing,” He said, his own voice coming out rough, startling himself. He cleared his throat, slipping the necklace inside his jacket. “I could ask you the same. It’s freezing, aren’t you cold?”

“Eh, it’s a bit brisk, I guess.” Sylvain shrugged, smirking and holding a hand up to the air. “This is nothing compared to Gautier.”

Claude raised an eyebrow, “Nice outfit choice,” he nodded at Sylvain’s thick gloves.

“I’m starting a new trend,” Sylvain joked, stretching his arms out and resting his forearms on the back of the bench. “It’s a real hit in Faerghus. Why are _you_ sitting here instead of there?” He nodded down.

“I like to live dangerously,” Claude said, winking. Sylvain met his eyes and smiled, laughing slightly.

He’d known what Sylvain looked like, in theory: vibrant red hair, deep brown eyes, rosy cheeks. He could list arbitrary adjectives as one would introduce a character in a book. But time weathered memories down like stones at the bottom of a river, and these were the edges Claude had missed: the tilt of his eyes, the faded scar on his right temple—something he’d never noticed before—and the specific way his smile looked, warm but guarded.

There were too many details to name, and Claude felt an unbearable kind of fondness and a desire to reach out and trace over them like feeling out the rough edges of his pendant stone. 

_Oh_ , _yeesh_ — _what the—_

He blinked, finding that Sylvain was looking right back at him with an unfocused expression, and he inhaled and leaned back a little. Sylvain pulled back as well, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. 

Claude kind of felt like standing up and throwing himself over the ledge that was about ten feet away. 

“Um, actually, I think I’ve had enough of danger for a bit,” He said, lifting himself off the backrest and sliding down to sit. . .where butts usually went when sitting on benches. He winced. “I think I’ve gone numb back there.”

Sylvain snorted, rounding the bench and going to sit next to him. 

“So,” he said, too casually, “I’ll admit that you and the rising sun make a gorgeous view, but I was also kind of expecting the professor to be here.”

“They were already gone when I got up,” Claude shrugged. “I wasn’t exactly looking for them.”

“Cool,” Sylvain muttered, his fingers tapping an erratic beat against his thigh. “I woke up and you two were the only ones missing, so. . .”

“Everyone’s still asleep?” 

“Yeah.” 

Claude leaned back, bringing his legs up and sitting cross-legged. Tucking his arms back into his jacket, he felt for the pendant in an in an inner pocket and fiddled with it.

The sky edged more into its usual deep blue. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sylvain start to fidget.

Sylvain squinted at him, opening his mouth. He closed it. 

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” Claude finally asked him, eyebrows drawn down. “You’re being a bit strange.”

“What? Me? No, nothi—I mean, maybe? I—“ Sylvain sighed raggedly. “I just. . .you look—you look great. I guess I couldn’t see it all that well since it was so dark last night, but yeah. . .it’s just—wow, y’know?”

“Do you need me to do something or. . .?” Claude asked, shifting awkwardly.

“Yeah. I mean, no. I don’t need you _for something_ , per se—Ugh, this is hard.”

“Just say it.”

“Listen, I—“ Sylvain stared at him. He ended up laughing awkwardly. Claude tried to think of whatever it was that Sylvain was having such a hard time with.

“Did you. . .need permission to go back to the Kingdom or something?” That made sense. Sylvain was rarely ever the dissenting voice in a group of people, and everyone had agreed to assist. . .now that Claude viewed it from his perspective— “Hey, you don’t need to be scared for something like that. You came here as a friend, expecting a short reunion—I imagine this blew out of proportion for you really quickly. If you need to go back to Gautier, I understand. I promise I won’t hold anything against you.”

“What?” Sylvain shook his head. “ _No_. I meant what I said back there. That’s not what I—look, I was just trying to say. . .you look. . .great.”

“So you’ve said,” said Claude, hoping he didn’t sound as awkward as he felt. He felt heat creeping up his neck. 

“I—Never mind. I sound stupid. Um,” Sylvain sighed, and ran a hand through his hair to push it back. Claude watched red strands curl over his gloved fingers. “Look. When I left Gautier, it wasn’t with permission.”

Claude nodded.

“Basically, I ran away. With nothing but the armor I had on and my horse.” Sylvain continued, crossing his arms and looking out at the distance. “So, I’ve got nothing. No troops to offer, no money, but most importantly—no Relic.”

“Okay.”

“I left the Lance with my father, since they need _something_ to defend against the Dukedom with. And—“ Sylvain’s jaw tensed, and he flexed his fingers out, tapping at his bicep erratically. “Yeah. There you go.”

He uncrossed his arms, and spread his arms out, before sliding down the bench a little. He looked up at Claude.

“This is me telling you I’m deadweight,” Sylvain added, as Claude stared at him blankly.

Some things really don’t change, not after five years.

“You don’t have nothing to offer, that’s ridiculous,” Claude sighed. “On your own you’re more than a decent fighting force, and besides--”

He gestured to debris around them.

“Right now, I’d say our priority is to fix this place up for Teach and stay hidden from the Empire while we plan our next move. Now, if you don’t pull your weight cleaning up _then_ I’m gonna have to admit you’re deadweight and send you packing. I doubt it, though.”

He looked back down at Sylvain, smiling playfully. Sylvain took it in for a moment, then huffed and shook his head, pushing himself back up to sit straight. 

“If anyone’s bad at cleaning it’s you,” Sylvain teased.

“Alas, I can’t be perfect at everything, I’m afraid.” Claude sighed exaggeratedly. “Let’s just be glad it’s cleaning and not tactics, given my job.”

“So you’re really not. . .anything,” Sylvain seemed to decide on, after a pause, “about me not bringing the Lance?”

“Of course not.” Smiling softly, Claude raised his hand and laid it over Sylvain’s chest, over his heart. “What’s important is you brought this.”

Sylvain stared at him silently, his expression unreadable. Claude held the staring contest for about a minute before his mouth pulled up at the corners and he sucked his lips in. Sylvain’s lips twitched. 

They burst into laughter, doubling over. 

“No, I don’t care if you didn’t bring a Relic.” Claude said, still laughing. “You think I’m any less happy that, say, Leonie or Ignatz, is here over Hilda and Lorenz? Besides. I’ve heard about the Dukedom’s efforts to suppress Gautier and Fraldarius.”

“So you’re out to pick my brain about tactics.”

“Exactly.” Claude tilted his head and smiled. “Of course, that doesn’t mean you’re here for just that. You’re a good guy, Sylvain.”

Sylvain hummed dismissively. “Eh, I’ll take your word for it, then. Honestly, Cornelia hasn’t been all that active, lately. The worst of it was definitely the first wave, back when. . .you know. The Lance of Ruin did most of the job back then.”

When Dimitri had been sentenced to death. Claude’s mouth twisted in a frown. “Yeah.”

“If you ask me. . .” Sylvain shrugged. “It felt more like a distraction. Their offense eased up considerably after—after Dimitri’s execution.”

It made sense. Claude had been too preoccupied at the time with his own side to look into it too closely, and Judith had gotten busy with her own work. 

“Lord Rodrigue would have done anything to get him out,” Sylvain said. “If Cornelia hadn’t sent such a massive wave of soldiers after us that year, he would’ve led us to break him out of the dungeons, I’m sure of it.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

He scoffed. “What good would it have done? Nothing would have changed. It’s simple math—Cornelia had more resources, and we had just enough to scrape by.” 

Sylvain sighed heavily. “Knowing this wouldn’t have magically conjured up more people to break Dimitri out. It’d just make Lord Rodrigue. . .and Felix angrier.”

Claude felt the hopelessness and pessimism radiating off the other man in waves. He sagged back against the bench, feeling heavy. 

“How’d Felix manage?” He asked, after an uncomfortable pause. “He knows you’re here?”

“Yeah.” Sylvain nodded. “I mean, he knew about the reunion thing, and I said I was going.”

He huffed, smiling a bit.

“He said I could do whatever I wanted, but it was likely nobody would show up and I’d be lucky if the monastery hadn’t been overrun by wolves and I wasn’t walking into a death trap or something.”

Claude snorted. “You know, considering. . . _you_ , in general, that sounds more like something you’d believe.”

Sylvain simply quirked up his lips in a halfhearted smile, picking at his gloves.

Claude’s amused expression slipped off his face. He stilled, feeling an awful kind of cold break open in his chest and spread outwards in horror.

“Hey,” he said, quietly.

“Well!” Sylvain cleared his throat. “It wasn’t like it actually did happen, so everything’s good. Just another could-have-been. Everything’s worked out for me so far, I figured whatever happens, happens, y’know? And, well, look at that. Everyone showed up. Clearly I made the right choice.”

He sounded desperate. For what, Claude wasn’t sure.

“Sylvain—“ he started, not knowing where to start. 

“Listen--”

 _I_ am, Claude was about to interrupt, when a group of voices called, beating him to the punch.

“ _There_ you are!” Hilda called, looking relieved. The rest of the Deer and Teach followed behind her. “Jeez, first we had to find the professor, then you two. It was like hunting.”

“Ah, Hilda, no need to hunt me down,” Sylvain stood up, slipping on his usual mask with ease. “You know you just need to ask and I’m there.”

Claude felt a little sick.

-

Something felt off about the classroom, when they returned. Claude walked as far as as a couple feet before he heard it: the faint sound of a bowstring straining.

Claude felt the hairs on the back of his neck rising. Swiftly, he raised his right heel and whipped out the dagger tucked in his boot. 

“Wha—“ Ignatz was starting to say, backing up frantically, when Claude turned and threw the dagger with a practiced flick of his wrist. It glinted as it buried itself at the edge of one of the tables pushed up against the wall, the hilt trembling. 

The assassin, their face partially covered by shadows, didn’t flinch. Their hair was cropped short and they were wearing different clothes—but it was their stance that caught Claude’s eye. Rigid, with the arrow on the left side of the bow instead of right like traditional Fódlan archery. 

“Shamir?” He called. 

“Careful,” Shamir said, standing and pulling the dagger out in one smooth move. She slipped her bow over her back. “One more inch and you would have sliced my nose clean off.”

Her lips quirked. 

“Shamir!” Leonie cried, running forward to meet her halfway. Shamir nodded at her. “I—“

“I heard about your mercenary work, yes,” Shamir smiled. “You have a good mentor—I worked with him a couple times. Capable man.”

Leonie beamed. 

“Here,” Shamir held the dagger out to Claude, hilt first. “Stellar aim and reflexes as ever. Glad to see you haven’t lost your touch, even after five years of a desk job.”

“Thanks. I practiced.” Claude tucked the dagger back in his boot. “I almost didn’t catch you there. What are you doing here?”

“Checking for Rhea on behalf of the Knights.” Shamir stared at Byleth. “This wouldn’t be what they were hoping for, but they’ll be happy all the same. We’ve been searching for you too, professor. I came here to check if Rhea returned to the monastery for the millenium festival.”

“Just you?” Leonie asked. 

“No, I brought Cyril.” Shamir looked over her shoulder, out the entrance to the classroom. “He said he heard something by the stables and we split up.”

“Ah, that would be my wyvern, probably,” Claude smiled sheepishly. “She’s made a game out of catching the rats at the stables.”

“Are the rest of the Knights coming?” Byleth asked.

“Probably not.” Shamir said. “They’re following up on a lead somewhere over in Rowe territory, in the Dukedom. This was a long shot—I volunteered to check here and Cyril came along.”

“Oh, so you’re leaving soon?” Leonie frowned. 

Shamir paused. There was something in her eyes—something that pulled at the skin around her eyes, making her look tenser than usual. Claude watched her warily.

“Maybe not,” She said, looking at Byleth. “Are you planning to set up base here?”

Byleth nodded. 

“This place will need a little fixing up, then.” Shamir said. “Ten people probably won’t be enough. Twelve could cut it, though.”

“Won’t the Knights worry?” Raphael interjected. “What about Catherine?”

Shamir averted her eyes. “They’ll be fine. I’ll drop them a messenger.”

So that was it. Claude took note.

-

“What’s your plan?” 

Shamir muttered to him, as Lysithea happily pulled Cyril into an impulsive hug, the rest of the Deer gathering around the young man. 

“I’m working on it.” Claude said lowly, eyeing her. “I need to figure out the specifics. Also--”

“If you’re going to ask about Catherine--”

“I’m not being nosy.”

Shamir scoffed.

“Not for my own benefit,” Claude amended. “I just need to know if you. . .obviously, we’re short-staffed here.”

“Unless you devote your cause to finding Rhea, I’m not sure you can get the Knights to join in on whatever plan you’re cooking up,” Shamir said, crossing her arms. “You have all of the children of your Alliance big shots right here.”

“If Edelgard gets the slightest hint that the new rebellion is from the Alliance, it’s over for us.” Claude shook his head. He spotted Lysithea pulling Cyril closer to them. “Later.”

-

“Later” turned out to be some number of days after. Fixing up the monastery took some work--aside from cleaning, they’d also needed to figure out the water system and food storage. With Leonie’s expertise in hunting and food preservation, and Raphael’s guidance, they’d figured out a system. 

After everything seemed to settle, Shamir introduced him to the cardinal’s room.

“This is where Rhea held meetings with the heads of the other church branches. Or heads of state. Anyone important,” Shamir explained, pushing open the doors. Raphael peered around them. “It’d make a decent meeting room for us to discuss plans.”

“Cool.” Claude muttered, looking at the long table. “Maybe we should bring a blackboard in. Or two.”

“I’ll get on that,” Raphael said. “We’re getting serious now, huh.”

“I’m afraid so, my friend.” Claude smiled at him grimly. “You’re--”

“You’ve told me this a billion times since Shamir came back, and I’m tellin’ ya: I’m staying,” Raphael said, shaking his head. “I know you heard me when I said I promised Maya I’d come home, but this is way bigger than you or me or Maya now. I’m going to fight for all of us.”

“Okay,” Claude said, feeling unsure. Raphael clapped him on the back before leaving to get the blackboards.

“They made their choice,” Shamir said. “They’ll say if they want out, so don’t focus on that.”

“I know that.” Claude said tiredly. “I just want them to know they have the option.”

“We’re running out of options,” Shamir replied. “We don’t have the luxury. . .they don’t have the luxury of up and leaving, because they’ve never considered it. They belong here.”

“I didn’t think of it that way.” Claude said, almost to himself. 

“I’ve had more than five years of getting that drilled into my head by people who work that way,” Shamir said, running a hand through her short hair. “Now. To business. You aren’t going to consider using the Alliance?”

“Unless it’s a last resort, yeah,” Claude straightened, “Like I said—it’s too dangerous. Edelgard moves quickly, and the Alliance is one step away from collapse. She’d wipe us out.”

“So what are you thinking?”

“The Knights. The Church, basically.” Claude said. “They aren’t tied down to a specific part of the country. It’s ambiguous enough, they have supporters from every part, even Adrestia, I’ll bet. I’m thinking of using the Crest of Flames as a banner, actually.”

“Not a bad idea,” Shamir tilted her head, looking thoughtful. “I’m not too familiar with the history, but I know it was the King of Liberation’s symbol.”

“Yeah. And—well. It’s Teach’s crest, too.” Claude smiled. “I’m thinking of having Teach lead the charge.”

“Byleth?”

“Think about it,” Claude held his hands out, palms up. “The Church isn’t going to follow me, or you. They’re going to fight under the closest person to Rhea. That’s Teach or Seteth. And between them, we’ve got Teach on our side. But we need troops, and that’s where Seteth comes in.”

“Seteth is too focused on Rhea,” Shamir said, her eyes unfocused. “But--you’re thinking of recruiting him by Byleth.”

Claude nodded. “If they agree, Teach is a pretty influential figure.”

“Under the banner, and if they’re seen—” Shamir said, catching on, “Edelgard will assume it’s the Church rising up under Byleth. They won’t suspect you.”

“Oh, she’ll suspect. If not her, Hubert will. They were my teacher at the academy, after all. What’s important here is that Lorenz and Lysithea, or any of the nobles here don’t let it slip that I’m not in Derdriu. At least until we have control of the situation, and it’s safe for me to come out and officially declare resistance and ‘ally’ with the Church.”

“And then what?” 

“What do you mean?”

“After you take the Empire, and end Edelgard’s. . .whatever this is,” Shamir waved vaguely. “What are your plans, then?”

“Depends,” Claude deflected. “On Rhea’s status.”

Shamir studied him. Claude stared back at her.

“Hmph.” Shamir snorted, amused. “You’re a clever one. Cold, though. Using the Church like that. One might think you hold no regard for the goddess.”

Claude simply shook his head, exhaling, “Do you?”

“Fair,” Shamir shrugged. “Fine. As you know, the Knights were in Rowe territory. We’ll follow up from there. Is tomorrow acceptable?”

-

“You’re the leader of the Alliance,” Lorenz protested. “You _cannot_ afford to die, Claude. You can’t afford to even be seen, otherwise the floodgates will open and the Empire will crush us underneath their heel, starting with _Gloucester_!”

“Then I won’t be seen,” Claude said. “Look, we don’t have resources right now. There’s only the twelve of us, and out of that we only have three people qualified for stealth—Shamir, Ignatz, and myself. Ignatz is out of the question because he hasn’t brushed up in five years. Do you want to send Shamir and Byleth alone and risk lowering our numbers to ten?”

Lorenz pursed his lips and turned his head away. 

“If this goes well, we get the Knights and the Church’s army.” Claude reasoned. “Even with the Central Church’s collapse, it’s Seteth’s work that’s kept Rhea’s followers under control. You can’t deny that it’s a valuable resource that we need, Lorenz. Without troops we’re just twelve people playing house in an abandoned monastery.”

“And I know that.” Lorenz inhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I just—Claude, if you fail, who will lead us? What do we even—“

“I’m getting to that.” Claude held up a hand. “Obviously, you will.”

“What?” Lorenz looked comical, with his eyes wide and his mouth dropped open. Claude resisted the urge to poke fun and tried to keep a straight face. 

“Listen, the pond’s gathered a whole army of flies, you don’t want to be inviting them in. Trust me.”

Failed step one. 

Lorenz’s mouth closed with a _click_ and he glared venomously. “Pardon, I’m still trying to process—you’re leaving _me_ in charge?”

“Yeah. Who were you expecting?” Claude snorted. “Hilda?”

“Gautier, perhaps.” Lorenz said.

Claude blinked, playful expression falling off his face.

“He’s smart. Enough to be able to combat the forces the Dukedom have sent for the past four years, at least. He’s charismatic, and I suppose he could get people to listen to him if he wanted, much like yourself.” Lorenz continued. “That is aside from the additional fact that you trust him, so I find myself baffled, to say the least.”

“I—what?” Claude felt his face contort into a bewildered expression. “What are you talking about?”

“If I’ve learned anything about you, it’s that your words cannot be taken at face value.” Lorenz crossed his arms. “Claude. Don’t delude yourself, nor _me_ . You had regular board game sessions, _and—_ well. I saw you two at the cathedral on the night of the ball. I know what you look like when you’re charmed by someone.”

“You—“ Claude felt affronted. “Were you _stalking_ me? This is a whole other level, Lorenz—“

“You were playing out in the open!” Lorenz threw up his hands. “In the grass by the gazebo—“

“The reason we picked the gazebo was because nobody liked hanging out by the green glowy thing except Dorothea,” Claude retorted, glancing at Shamir and feeling a spark of embarrassed frustration. “Obviously we weren’t looking for an audience. And what were you even doing at the cathe—“

“We are getting besides the point,” Lorenz gestured as if physically slashing away the topic, his eyes scrunched shut. There was a slight tinge of reddish pink blooming on his ears and throat. 

“Come find me when both of you start acting your age again,” Shamir said, in the silence that followed. She said this bluntly and with no accusation, sounding more resigned. She turned and exited the common room swiftly. 

Claude and Lorenz watched her go. They looked at each other, Lorenz still red in the face and Claude’s mouth twisted in an embarrassed frown. 

Claude waited a couple more moments, listening as Shamir’s footsteps grew fainter. He wondered how Shamir could make walking away sound _pointed_. “Hey, look. Lorenz.”

Lorenz cleared his throat. “We have been acting rather juvenile. I apologize.”

“I—me too. Personal issues aside,” Claude sighed. “I wouldn’t leave Sylvain in charge, mostly because he’s not all that warm to the idea of playing the leader. Sure, he’s capable of it, but I don’t think he wants to.”

“He doesn’t?”

“I’m. . .relatively sure, yeah,” Claude nodded, crossing his arms. He glanced towards the open door, wishing Shamir had closed it on her way out. “You, on the other hand. I think I wouldn’t be that far off to assume you’re more than welcome to me handing my title over to you?”

“On the contrary,” Lorenz huffed. “You’re a capable leader. I’ve reassessed my views.”

“See? That’s what I like about you.” Claude perked up, turning back to face Lorenz fully. “Do you remember when you told me off for the thing about Margrave Edmund and Fódlan’s Locket? Five years ago?”

“Yes?”

“Back then, I expected you to lash out when I corrected you. Most people would.” Claude dropped his arms and spread them out slightly. “Instead, you apologized. You’ve got this balance between pride and humility. I can’t quite put a finger on it. _But_ it’s what we need in times like these. Especially with a bunch as rowdy as ours, wouldn’t you say?”

Lorenz blinked at him once, twice, thrice before opening his mouth. “I—hm. I wasn’t aware you held me in such high esteem.”

“I’ve always known you were a good man,” Claude said, smiling slightly. “Although—you could really ease up on that stick in your ass, Mister Uptight. You’d be doing us all a favor.”

“Why I— _Claude_ ,” Lorenz sighed, face contorting back into a scowl. “It amazes me how you can ruin _your own_ serious moments.”

Claude laughed. “Well, I’ve got to keep my own kind of balance, of course.”

-

“Thanks for giving us a moment,” Claude told Shamir, later that day. 

“It took me too long to figure out what you wanted,” Shamir said, annoyed. “Next time, just tell me beforehand.”

“Hey, I wasn’t expecting him to start bringing up my dark and secret past right in front of you. Give me a break.”

-

Claude shuffled through a sheaf of papers as he stepped over a pile of books he’d pulled out from under the bed. Shamir estimated the trip to last one or two weeks, and Lorenz had asked for texts on different military tactics. 

Except Claude was all too easily distracted when it came to certain things, so he was torn between an urge to revisit a collection of detailed notes he’d made about Almyra and the Alliance in his school days—and the increasing urgency to fix up everything he needed before it was time to leave. 

He grabbed a box of pencils with one hand and tossed it onto the bed with his clothes. He could just bring the notes with him, he mused. He tossed the stack as an afterthought, forgetting that paper—

“Shit!” 

Claude jolted and scrambled to grab the papers out of the air, fervently hoping they weren’t too out of order. In his haste his foot caught on one of the many piles of books lying around, his vision dipping abruptly as he grabbed at the mattress to stop his fall. “Son of a—“ 

A cut-off laugh from the doorway sent him snapping up straight, a hand pushing his mussed hair back from his face as he turned his head.

Sylvain had his fist pressed up against his mouth, his eyes wide and his face glowing red. 

“Sorry,” he choked, putting down his hand and walking forward. He knelt down near Claude, grinning at the floor and not looking sorry at all, “Sorry. Do you need help?”

“No,” Claude quickly grabbed at some of the papers still scattered about, feeling mortified and panicked. “No. That’s, um, confidential Alliance stuff, don’t look at it.”

Sylvain, who had picked up one farther from Claude, cleared his throat and turned his hand around to show Claude the page. He tapped at the bottom corner.

Claude frowned and squinted. There was a terrible drawing of a big man with an exaggeratedly small head, next to a smaller man holding the number three—no, a bow and an arrow—with sparkles around his head. _HI CLAUDE_ , it said under the illustration, signed with ‘R’. In smaller handwriting under it, _you have nice handwriting -leonie._

Maybe he hadn’t been as careful with his things as he thought he was, in his youth.

“Ah, obviously I didn’t. . .put that part,” Claude said, awkwardly plucking the sheet out of Sylvain’s hand and slipping it into the stack.

“Yeah,” Sylvain laughed, his eyes bright. Claude let himself laugh along, grateful that the drawing took away attention from the extensive notes about Fòdlan’s Locket, at least.

“Anyhow,” Claude shook his head, trying to appear calm and collected. He stood, gathering up the papers and tucking them under the clothes on his bed. “What brings you here?”

He hadn't seen much of Sylvain, presumably because of the last time they talked. Admittedly, Claude was still bothered, but what could he say to something like that? When was a good time to bring it up? He let it be for the time being, but resolved to keep an ear out if the opportunity arose.

“Yeah, I heard from Lorenz that you’re leaving?” Sylvain folded his arms behind his neck, stretching casually, “I—you haven’t said anything. I’m kinda surprised I heard it from him first, actually.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah,” Sylvain nodded at the mess on Claude’s floor. “I figure it’s gonna be a long trip if you’ve managed to mess your stuff up this much.”

“No, just two weeks at most,” Claude corrected. “I was just looking for a book Lorenz asked to borrow.”

“Huh.”

“What,” Claude said.

“You know,” Sylvain grinned at him, although he didn't seem to be looking him in the eyes completely. “If you need a wingman, I’m your guy. Though I guess someone like you doesn’t need one, heh.”

Claude gave Sylvain an unimpressed look. 

“Has the Duke Riegan fallen for anyone lately? No?”

“You know I didn’t have time for that,” Claude laughed softly, finding the idea amusing. “Maybe I’ll think about it later, if we can get through this in one piece.”

Sylvain hummed. “That’d be nice.”

“Yeah, well. . .how about you? Break any hearts in the past five years?” Claude smiled wryly, already expecting the answer.

“Just mine,” said Sylvain. Claude blinked. “. . .which is a joke. It’s a joke. I’m joking.”

“Okay, you’re joking.”

“Yep.” Sylvain nodded, rocking back on his heels. “Not my best joke. Of course, I had some fun times. Nothing serious.”

“Was it ever serious?” Claude joked.

“Once, maybe.” Sylvain averted his eyes. “It didn’t work out.”

Claude hummed sympathetically. Feeling awkward, he turned, busying himself with sorting through the books on his bed. “Sorry.”

Sylvain shrugged, “I’m over it. I think. I mean—I’ve had five years to think about it, so it’d be really pathetic of me to not, I guess.”

“Five, huh.” Claude was starting to feel an odd sense of dread in his gut. He felt like running, suddenly. He wasn’t sure of where.

“Yeah, and it wasn’t really. . .” Sylvain trailed off. Claude looked back at him.

He’d fallen into one of his unreadable expressions again, his jaw clenched. 

“I think,” he said, “that for once in my life I didn’t go after what. . .after who I wanted, and it kind of stuck with me for a while.”

Claude opened his mouth, then closed it again. 

“Sorry, that was—“ Sylvain shook his head, smiling again. “We’ve got more important things to worry about than my love life. Like that trip you’re going on.”

“Hey, if you ever want to talk about it,” Claude offered, opening a drawer and taking out an empty bag for his things. 

“Nah, I’m good.” Sylvain waved a hand dismissively. “So are you allowed to talk about it or is this, ah, confidential Alliance stuff?”

Sylvain lingered, clearing a spot for himself on the bed and sorting out books as Claude packed his things and talked about the stealth mission he and Shamir were to embark on. It felt. . .comforting. Casual. Like they weren’t in the middle of war preparations and like they were talking about literature and the opera instead of the five types of poison Shamir had given Claude to carry on his person.

“Are you joking?” Claude snorted, in response to Sylvain commenting that Claude could share some of his own knowledge with Shamir. “The best I can whip up is something that’ll give people really bad indigestion.”

“Hey,” Sylvain raised his eyebrows. “I think you’re underestimating the power you have. I’d say indigestion and its side effects are pretty lethal.”

Claude tried not to, but he ended up laughing anyway. Settling down, he looked at the other—Sylvain was laughing more quietly, his eyes soft in that puppy dog way although he looked happier than he usually did when used those eyes. 

Suddenly, Claude felt anxious. He smiled. “Hey. Dinner?”

“Five years and he finally asks me to dinner!” Sylvain scrunched his eyes shut, clutching at his chest. “Be still, my beating heart!”

Claude shoved at his shoulder and got up, snickering, “If sharing Leonie’s catch of the day with ten other people fighting over seconds is romantic to you, then sure.”

“I’ll take what I can get,” Sylvain grinned, pushing himself off the bed. Claude shook his head and headed towards the door.

“Hey, look at this.”

Claude looked over his shoulder, a hand on the door handle. Sylvain pulled something from under a pile of books. A box.

“Oh, that.”

“Kingdoms, right?” Sylvain balanced the box on one arm and peered inside—Claude suddenly felt like he was looking at Sylvain, nineteen and agreeing to play a game for a prize. He blinked the image away.

“Yeah.”

“We should play it when you get back,” Sylvain put it back carefully.

Claude smiled at the thought, opening the door and leaning against the doorframe. He gestured outside. “Sure, why not.”

“Kingdoms, chess, that one with the labyrinth, whatever you want, really,” Sylvain listed as he passed by. Claude closed the door behind him. “I’m down.”

They started towards the stairs. 

“We’re still playing the game, right?”

“Uh, yeah, I just said—”

“Nah, I mean the other one.” Sylvain folded his arms behind his head. Claude wished he’d stop doing it. His chest pushed out whenever he did. “Five years must’ve given us both a lot of new material to figure out, huh?”

Claude looked at him in surprise. “You’re still on that?”

“Always,” Sylvain said, not looking at him. There it was again—his unreadable face. “Are you?”

Claude looked away, as well. “I’ve never quite been able to quit it.”

“Good,” Sylvain murmured. He slung an arm over Claude’s shoulder, abruptly. He jolted. Sylvain hadn’t been touchy with him since the reunion. Feeling the warm weight, his hand brushing against his collarbone—Claude found that he might’ve missed it. A little.

It made him both excited and uncomfortable—no one had ever tried to figure out Claude’s deal on their own, no matter how transparent he was about it. It had always felt like people saw right through him, deemed him not worth the effort to try; they’d always shrug it off with a comment about his secretive nature and leave it be. 

But he couldn’t get rid of the small, ridiculous part of him that was still stuck in his teenage mindset: the part that was convinced that when Sylvain had his fun and opened every box, every secret, Claude would have nothing left to offer. 

Nothing of real value, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (lorenz was not stalking them in the cathedral. he was there for Something Else [spoilers for a subplot ig idk yet] and just happened to pass by and saw the dancing and was like wtf and then just held that in for five years.)
> 
> comment what you liked? thanks for reading!! <3


End file.
